Dedicated virtual computing system servers

ABSTRACT

A virtual computer system service receives a request from a customer to provision a dedicated server for the exclusive use of the customer. The dedicated server may be used to launch one or more virtual machine instances. The virtual computer system service subsequently selects, from a pool of available servers, a server that can be dedicated to the customer and that does not have capacity allocated to any other customer. The virtual computer system service may update a database to specify, in an entry corresponding to the selected server, that the server has been dedicated for the exclusive use of the customer. Once the database has been updated, the virtual computer system service will enable the customer to launch a virtual machine instance using the dedicated server.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/053,277, filed Aug. 2, 2018, entitled “DEDICATED VIRTUAL COMPUTINGSYSTEM SERVERS,” which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/659,477, filed Mar. 16, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,069,680,entitled “DEDICATED VIRTUAL COMPUTING SYSTEM SERVERS,” the content ofwhich are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

Virtual computer systems have evolved and continue to evolve to keep upwith the demands of the organizations that use them. Many organizations,for example, utilize virtual computer systems for, among other reasons,the purpose of remotely operating one or more virtual servers. Despitetheir many advantages, modern virtual computer system services oftenlack functionality for providing a customer with dedicated servers forlaunching virtual machine instances using hardware that is solelydedicated to the customer's business needs. Further, these virtualcomputer system services often lack the ability to enable customers toprovide their own operating system volume licenses, as this wouldrequire the capability to repeatedly target virtual machine instancelaunches onto the same dedicated hardware.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure will bedescribed with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which variousembodiments can be implemented;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which one ormore virtual machine images are instantiated within one or morededicated servers upon customer request in accordance with at least oneembodiment;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which acustomer provides one or more operating system licenses forinstantiating one or more virtual machine images in a dedicated serverin accordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which one ormore virtual machine images are instantiated in one or more dedicatedserver slots in accordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative example of a database comprisinginformation for one or more servers provided by the virtual computersystem service in accordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 6 shows an illustrative example of a process for provisioning oneor more dedicated servers for at least one virtual machine instancebased at least in part on a customer request in accordance with at leastone embodiment;

FIG. 7 shows an illustrative example of a process for launching avirtual machine instance within a dedicated server in accordance with atleast one embodiment;

FIG. 8 shows an illustrative example of a process for releasing adedicated server in response to a customer request in accordance with atleast one embodiment;

FIG. 9 shows an illustrative example of a process for re-launching avirtual machine instance on a dedicated server in accordance with atleast one embodiment;

FIG. 10 shows an illustrative example of a process for launching avirtual machine instance within a specified capacity group in accordancewith at least one embodiment;

FIG. 11 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which variousembodiments can be implemented; and

FIG. 12 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which variousembodiments can be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, various embodiments will be described. Forpurposes of explanation, specific configurations and details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments.However, it will also be apparent to one skilled in the art that theembodiments may be practiced without the specific details. Furthermore,well-known features may be omitted or simplified in order not to obscurethe embodiment being described.

Techniques described and suggested herein relate to the provisioning andreservation of a dedicated server for the instantiation of a virtualmachine instance on behalf of a customer. In an embodiment, a virtualcomputer system service, operated and managed by a computing resourceservice provider, receives a request from an entity (e.g., anorganization or individual) to provision a dedicated server that can beutilized for launching a variety of virtual machine instances. Thededicated server may be provisioned by the virtual computer systemservice only for the entity's usage. Thus, the virtual computer systemservice may be configured to prevent any other entities from launchingany virtual machine instances within this dedicated server. The entitymay be a customer of the computing resource service provider thatoperates various services such as the aforementioned virtual computersystem service, object-based data storage services, database servicesand other services.

Upon receiving the request from the entity, the virtual computer systemservice may identify a variety of servers that may be suitable fordedication and, if any are identified, select a server that can beprovisioned and dedicated to the entity. Once the virtual computersystem service has provisioned a dedicated server in response to theentity's request, the virtual computer system service may generate aserver identifier that corresponds to the server; update a serverdatabase to indicate the identifier and that the dedicated server hasbeen assigned to the entity; and send the identifier to the entity. Thismay prevent any other entity from accessing and utilizing the dedicatedserver for their own virtual machine instances while the server isallocated to the customer. The virtual computer system service mayenable the entity to specify launch of a virtual machine instance usingthe dedicated server by indicating an identifier of the dedicated serverthrough an interface provided by the virtual computer system service andthe particular virtual machine instance to be launched (e.g., selectionof a virtual machine image that can be instantiated, etc.).

In an embodiment, once the dedicated server has been provisioned for theentity's use, the virtual computer system service can receive a requestfrom the entity to launch a virtual machine instance using the dedicatedserver by specifying the server identifier in the launch request. Forthe particular virtual machine instance, the entity may provide his/herown operating system volume license, which may be required to enablelaunch of the virtual machine instance within the same dedicated serverwithout requiring an additional license for utilizing the virtualmachine instance using different hardware.

At any time, the entity may release the dedicated server used to operatehis/her virtual machine instances. For example, when an entity acquiresa dedicated server, the entity may specify an “Auto-Release” parameter.If the “Auto-Release” parameter is enabled, the entity may release thededicated server by stopping or terminating all the running virtualmachines on the server (e.g., by API calls that cause the managementsub-system to stop or terminate the virtual machines as part offulfilling the API calls). In this event, the database is updated toreflect that server is no longer dedicated to the entity. If the“Auto-Release” parameter is not enabled, even if the customer stops orterminates all the instances on the server, the server may continue tobe reserved for the entity. In this configuration, the entity mayrelease the server by sending a “ReleaseServer” web service request toan application programming interface (API) and pass the serveridentifier as a parameter in the request. With the “Auto-Release”parameter, the entity may stop or terminate all the virtual machineinstances and maintain the entity's reservation of the dedicated serverwithin the server database. This may enable the entity to access thisdedicated server at a later time. In some embodiments, if the dedicatedserver was provisioned on an on-demand basis (e.g., provisioned based onthe entity's immediate demand for a dedicated server), the “AutoRelease”parameter may be automatically set so the virtual computer systemservice may release the dedicated server into a capacity pool forservers that can be used for virtual machine instantiation and updatethe server database to indicate that server is no longer dedicated forthe entity's sole use.

If the entity did not release the reservation and requests a re-launchof the virtual machine instance within a dedicated server and specifiesthe server identifier in the request, the virtual computer systemservice may identify the original dedicated server. If the originaldedicated server was released by the virtual computer system service inresponse to an entity request or does not have sufficient capacity forinstantiating the virtual machine instance, the virtual computer systemservice may attempt to recapture the released dedicated server and, ifavailable, utilize this original dedicated server to re-launch thevirtual machine instance. However, if the original dedicated server isunavailable, whether due to insufficient capacity or usage by anotherentity as a result of the release of the server, the virtual computersystem service may provision a new dedicated server for the entity thatcan be used to re-launch the virtual machine instance.

In this manner, a computing resource service provider can provision adedicated server to an entity, which may be used for launching virtualmachine instances while preventing other entities from using theresources of the dedicated server for their own virtual machineinstances. In addition, the techniques described and suggested hereinfacilitate additional technical advantages. For example, because, insome embodiments, the virtual computer system service may attempt tore-launch a virtual machine instance within the original dedicatedserver in which the virtual machine instance was operating, the entitymay not incur an additional operating system volume licensing fee forlaunching the virtual machine instance using different hardware. Thismay enable the entity to provide his/her own license and repeatedlytarget their virtual machine instance launches onto the same dedicatedhardware.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of an environment 100 in whichvarious embodiments can be implemented. In the environment 100, acustomer 102 (e.g., Customer 1) transmits a request to a virtualcomputer system service 106 to launch a virtual machine instance 112within a dedicated server 108. The virtual computer system service 106may maintain one or more servers 108 that are allocated for use asdedicated servers for one or more customers of the virtual computersystem service 106. These one or more servers may be distinct from otherservers 110 the virtual computer system service 106 may provide to itscustomers in that these other servers 110 may be used for instantiationof various virtual machine images for a variety of customers of thevirtual computer system service 106. Thus, each of these other servers110 may include one or more virtual machine images for differentcustomers. In some embodiments, the virtual computer system service 106may enable any server furnished by the virtual computer system service106 to be utilized as a dedicated server 108 upon request.

The customer 102 may previously have requested reservation andprovisioning of one or more dedicated servers 108 through an interfaceprovided by the virtual computer system service 106. For instance, thecustomer 102 may request that the virtual computer system service 106reserve one or more dedicated servers 108 for a specified period of timefor his/her business needs. A management sub-system 114 of the virtualcomputer system service 106 may, in response to the request, reservethese one or more dedicated servers 108 and may access a server datastore 116 to update a server database to specify that these particulardedicated servers 108 have been allocated for the customer's 102exclusive use. Additionally, the customer 102 may provide the virtualcomputer system service 106 with his/her operating system volumelicense, which the virtual computer system service 106 may use to enablethe same virtual machine instance 112 to be launched and, later,re-launched within the same dedicated server 108.

In an embodiment, the customer 102 may submit a request to launch thevirtual machine instance 112 within a dedicated server 108 withouthaving previously reserved the dedicated server 108 for his/herexclusive use. In such instances, the management sub-system 114 mayidentify one or more servers that may be dedicated for the customer's102 exclusive use and, if available, provision these one or more serverson-demand to the customer 102. The management sub-system 114 maysimilarly access the server data store 116 upon provisioning these oneor more on-demand dedicated servers 108 and specify, within a database,that these particular dedicated servers 108 have been provisioned forthe customer's 102 exclusive use. If, at a later time, the customer 102releases these on-demand dedicated servers 108, the managementsub-system 114 may add these servers to the capacity pool and enableother customers to provision these dedicated servers for their use.Alternatively, if the virtual computer system service 106 does notmaintain a pool of dedicated servers 108 that may be allocated to itscustomers upon request, the management sub-system 114 may enable theseservers to be utilized for any purpose and by any number of customers.In some embodiments, when the customer 102 reserves one or morededicated servers 108 for his/her exclusive use or the one or morededicated servers 108 are provisioned on-demand, the managementsub-system 114 may create a reservation identifier for each of the oneor more dedicated servers 108, which may represent the servers 108, andsend the reservation identifiers to the customer 102. For example, thecustomer may submit an “AcquireServer” web service request to an API andpass in the request parameters such as an account identifier for thecustomer 102, virtual machine instance types the customer 102 would liketo host on the dedicated server 108, information such as a number ofprocessors, amount of memory, amount of storage, amount of networkingcapacity, etc. In response to the request, the management sub-system 114may search for a dedicated server 108 that is available to be reservedand satisfies the parameters in the request in a database within theserver data store 116. If a dedicated server 108 can be identified, themanagement sub-system may generate a reservation identifier such as arandomly-generated alphanumeric value, a value that relates to thecharacteristics of the customer 102 that has submitted the request tocreate the reservation (e.g., Bob's first reservation), a value thatrelates to the characteristics of the reserved dedicated server 108(e.g., Instance Type ABC reservation), a sequence number, or a sequencenumber or other value that has been obfuscated (e.g., throughencryption). The management sub-system 114 may access the server datastore 116 to store the reservation identifier in the database inassociation with an identifier used by the virtual computer systemservice 106 to internally identify the dedicated server 108 and send thereservation identifier back to the customer 102. In addition, in someembodiments the management sub-system 114 may update a record within anaccounting database to enable billing of the customer 102 in accordancewith use of the one or more dedicated servers 108. The database may, forinstance record usage of dedicated servers (and, in some embodiments,other computing resources) for multiple customers so that customers canbe charged for dedicated servers in accordance with their usage. Forexample, the customer 102 may be charged for the amount of time the oneor more dedicated servers 108 are allocated for his/her exclusive use(e.g., per minute, per hour, etc.). Alternatively, the customer 102 maybe charged for the amount of time the one or more dedicated servers 108are actually used for the one or more virtual machine instances launchedusing the one or more dedicated servers 108. This may differ from otherbilling schema, wherein a customer 102 may be charged for the capacityutilized within a server when launching a virtual machine instance orfor the dedication of the virtual machine instance itself.

If the customer 102 has previously reserved one or more dedicatedservers 108 for his/her use, the customer 102, when submitting a requestto the virtual computer system service 106 to launch a virtual machineinstance 112, may specify which dedicated server 108 may be used forinstantiating the virtual machine instance 112. If the selecteddedicated server 108 does not have sufficient capacity to support thevirtual machine instance 112, the management sub-system 114 may accessthe database within the server data store 116 to evaluate the customer's102 other reserved dedicated servers 108 to determine if any of theseservers have sufficient capacity to support the virtual machine instance112 to be launched. Subsequently, if no capacity can be found, themanagement sub-system 114 may provision a new dedicated server 108 thatis capable of being utilized for the virtual machine instance 112. Undersuch circumstances, the virtual computer system service 106 may accessthe server database in the server data store 116 and indicate that thisnewly dedicated server has been allocated for the customer 102.

In some embodiments, if the virtual machine instance 112 requires thecustomer 102 to provide his/her own operating system volume license, themanagement sub-system 114 may specify, in the server data store 116, theserver that is being used to launch the virtual machine instance 112 andthe corresponding license obtained from the customer 102. If, at a latertime, the customer 102 submits a web service request to a“ReleaseServer” API to release the dedicated server 108 or submits a webservice request to a “StopInstance” API to stop the virtual machineinstance 112 and wishes to re-launch the virtual machine instance 112 bysubmitting a web service request to a “RunInstance” API, the managementsub-system 114 may attempt to re-launch the virtual machine instance 112within the same dedicated server 108. For instance, the managementsub-system 114 may access the server data store 116 to identify theparticular dedicated server 108 that was previously used to instantiatethe virtual machine instance 112. Subsequently, the managementsub-system 114 may determine whether this particular dedicated server108 is available and has sufficient capacity to support a re-launch ofthe virtual machine instance 112. If the particular dedicated server 108has sufficient capacity and has not been allocated to other customers,the management sub-system 114 may re-launch the virtual machine instance112 within this particular dedicated server 108.

If the particular dedicated server 108 is no longer available (e.g.,insufficient capacity or has been consumed by another customer), themanagement sub-system 114 may access the server data store 116 toidentify another server (e.g., another dedicated server reserved by thecustomer 102 or within the pool of dedicated servers 108 or anotherserver from the pool of other servers 110 that can be dedicated for thecustomer 102) that can be used to re-launch the virtual machine instance112. If the virtual machine instance 112 requires, based at least inpart on the operating system volume license, that it be re-launched inthe same dedicated server 108, the management sub-system 114 may denythe customer's 102 request to re-launch the virtual machine instance 112onto a different dedicated server 108, as re-launching the virtualmachine instance 112 using different hardware may constitute additionaluse of the license.

Once a dedicated server 108 has been assigned to a customer 102 forhis/her own use, no other customer 104 (e.g., Customer 2) may be allowedto utilize this dedicated server 108. For instance, as illustrated inFIG. 1, if a second customer 104 attempts to launch a virtual machineinstance 112 within a dedicated server 108 allocated to a first customer102, the management sub-system 114 may deny the second customer's 104request. Thus, when the second customer 104 attempts to launch a virtualmachine instance 112 using a dedicated server 108, the managementsub-system 114 may access the server data store 116 to identify adedicated server 108 distinct from any dedicated server 108 allocatedto, or reserved by, another customer 102. Further, if this secondcustomer 104 requests, to an “AcquireServer” API, reservation of one ormore dedicated servers 108, the management sub-system 114 may removefrom consideration any dedicated servers 108 already allocated to, orreserved by, another customer 102.

In some embodiments, the customer 102 may delegate access to theavailable capacity within the dedicated server 108 to other customers104 or other users. For instance, the customer 102 may configure thededicated server 108 to allow particular users to access and utilize theavailable capacity within the dedicated server 108 for other virtualmachine instances. Thus, when another user utilizes his/her set ofcredentials to launch a virtual machine instance within the dedicatedserver 108, the virtual computer system service 106 may determinewhether the particular user is authorized to do so on behalf of thecustomer 102 by virtue of the customer's delegation of authority to thisuser. In this manner, a customer with a dedicated server can usecapacity of the dedicated server for other customers while gainingfine-grained control over which other customers can utilize thecapacity.

In an embodiment, the customer 102 can submit a request to themanagement sub-system 114 to create a capacity group comprising one ormore dedicated servers 108 for the customer's 102 exclusive use andidentifiable in API calls for the purpose of performing operations inconnection with the group. For instance, through an interface providedby the virtual computer system service 106, the customer 102 may submita web service request to a “CreateCapacityGroup” API to create thecapacity group. Fulfillment of the “CreateCapacityGroup” API may causean identifier to be assigned for the capacity group. Once the managementsub-system 114 has created the capacity group on behalf of the customer102, the customer 102 may submit a second web service request to an“AssociateCapacityGroup” API to associate one or more dedicated servers108 to the capacity group, where a parameter of the request may specifyidentifiers of the servers or otherwise specify servers (e.g., byspecifying an identifier of a different existing capacity group). Inresponse to this request, the management sub-system 114 may access theserver database within the server data store 116 to specify, for each ofthe one or more dedicated servers 108 specified by the customer 102within the request, that the dedicated server 108 is associated with thecapacity group. This may include modifying a dedicated server entrywithin the server database to include a capacity group identifier forthe selected capacity group. Note that, in alternate embodiments, asingle request may be used to both create the capacity group and placeexisting servers into the group.

The customer 102, through the interface, may submit a web servicerequest to a “RunInstance” API to launch a virtual machine instancewithin a particular capacity group. A parameter of the request mayinclude an identifier of the capacity group. If the virtual machineinstance to be launched is a new virtual machine instance, themanagement sub-system 114 may access the server database within theserver data store 116 to determine whether the dedicated servers 108within the specified capacity group have sufficient capacity to supportthe virtual machine instance. If the specified capacity group does nothave sufficient capacity to support the virtual machine instance, themanagement sub-system 114 may not launch the virtual machine instanceand return an error message that may be provided to the customer 102through the interface. If the capacity group does have sufficientcapacity to support the virtual machine instance, the managementsub-system 114 may select a dedicated server 108 within the capacitygroup that has sufficient capacity to support the virtual machineinstance and has the “AutoPlacement” parameter set to “TRUE.”

Once a virtual machine instance has been launched within a capacitygroup, the management sub-system 114 may generate a server affinityidentifier for the virtual machine instance, which may be used todetermine where the virtual machine instance may be launched in theevent the instance is stopped and re-launched at a later time. Forinstance, if the virtual machine instance is launched within a capacitygroup, the management sub-system 114 may generate a server affinityidentifier for the instance that is set to “GROUP.” This may signifythat the virtual machine instance may only be operated within theparticular capacity group it was originally launched in. Thus, if thecustomer 102 attempts to re-launch the virtual machine instance withinanother capacity group or the original capacity group does not havesufficient capacity to support the virtual machine instance, themanagement sub-system 114 may deny the customer's 102 request tore-launch the virtual machine instance.

At any time, the customer 102 may submit a web service request to a“ModifyInstanceAtribute” API to modify the host affinity identifier fora particular virtual machine instance. For example, the customer 102 mayrequest modification of the identifier to specify that the virtualmachine instance may be launched within any dedicated server 108 withinthe capacity group hierarchy. The management sub-system 114, in responseto the request, may modify the server affinity identifier for thevirtual machine instance from “GROUP” to “SHARED.” This may serve toindicate that the virtual machine instance may be launched within anydedicated server 108 within the capacity group hierarchy. For instance,if the customer 102 stops the virtual machine instance and wishes tore-launch the virtual machine instance within the original capacitygroup, the management sub-system 114 may determine whether the originalcapacity group has sufficient capacity to support the virtual machineinstance. If the original capacity group does not have sufficientcapacity, the management sub-system 114 may evaluate the server affinityidentifier for the virtual machine instance to determine whether thevirtual machine instance must be launched within the specified capacitygroup. If the specified capacity group does not have sufficient capacityfor the virtual machine instance and the server affinity identifier isset to “GROUP,” the management sub-system 114 may deny the request tore-launch the virtual machine instance. However, if the identifier isset to “SHARED,” the management sub-system 114 may identify a parentcapacity group within the capacity group hierarchy and determine whetherthis parent capacity group has sufficient capacity for the virtualmachine instance. If the parent capacity group has capacity availablefor the instance, the management sub-system 114 may launch the virtualmachine instance within this parent capacity group.

As noted above, a customer may interact with a virtual computer systemservice to request reservation of one or more dedicated servers andlaunch of a virtual machine instance within one of these dedicatedservers or within a dedicated server provisioned to the customeron-demand. Accordingly, FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of anenvironment 200 in which one or more virtual machine images 208 areinstantiated within one or more dedicated servers 212 upon customerrequest in accordance with at least one embodiment. The virtual computersystem service 202 may provide customers with a customer interface 204that may enable a customer to access the virtual computer system service202. A customer may utilize the customer interface 204 through one ormore communications networks, such as the Internet. The customerinterface 204 may contain certain security safeguards to ensure that thecustomer has authorization to access the virtual computer system service202. For instance, in order to access the virtual computer systemservice 202, a customer may need to provide a username and acorresponding password or encryption key when using the customerinterface 204. Additionally, requests (e.g., API calls) submitted to thecustomer interface 204 may require an electronic signature generatedusing a cryptographic key such that the electronic signature isverifiable by the virtual computer system service 202, such as by anauthorization system (not shown).

Once the customer has gained access to the virtual computer systemservice 202 through the customer interface 204, the virtual computersystem service 202 may allow the customer to interact, through thecustomer interface 204, with a management sub-system 206. For instance,the management sub-system 206 may enable a customer to remotelyprovision a virtual machine instance. A customer may use the customerinterface 204 and the management sub-system 206 to generate a virtualmachine instance that includes an operating system and a variety ofapplications suited to the customer's needs. The operating system andthe various applications may be maintained in data storage in the formof machine images 208. The virtual computer system service 202 maymaintain a variety of machine images 208 based on specific customerpreferences, as specified in the management sub-system 206. When acustomer submits a request for provisioning a virtual machine instancethrough the management sub-system 206, the virtual computer systemservice 202 may identify the machine image the customer has requestedand allocate the resources necessary (e.g., the processors andrandom-access memory (RAM) required to operate the components of themachine image) to process the machine image. The machine image may beinstantiated on one or more servers (e.g., non-dedicated servers 210 ordedicated servers 212) that may act as a physical host for the instance.

In an embodiment, a customer, through the customer interface 204,submits a request to the virtual computer system service 202 toprovision and reserve one or more dedicated servers for his/her virtualmachine instances. This request may be submitted through an“AcquireServer” web service or other API call to the service 202 and mayinclude various parameters such as an account identifier for thecustomer, virtual machine instance types, information such as a numberof processors, amount of memory amount of networking capacity, etc.Additionally, if the customer wishes to reserve a dedicated server, therequest may be submitted through a “PurchaseReservedServer” web serviceor other API call to the service 202. In response to the request, themanagement sub-system 206 may access a server data store 214 toidentify, from a pool of dedicated servers 212 not allocated to anyother customers, the one or more dedicated servers that may be reservedfor the customer to fulfill his/her request. In some embodiments, thevirtual computer system service 202 may maintain a general pool ofnon-dedicated servers 210 that the management sub-system 206 may utilizeto identify one or more servers that may be dedicated to the customerfor his/her sole use. Once the management sub-system 206 has identifiedthe one or more servers to be dedicated to the customer, the managementsub-system 206 may access the server data store 214 to specify, within adatabase, which servers have been reserved for the exclusive use of thecustomer. Additionally, the management sub-system 206 may access acustomer profile 216 associated with the customer to specify that thiscustomer has access to these newly dedicated servers 212. The serverdata store 214 may specify a plurality of dedications, which mayindicate which dedicated servers 212 are allocated to each customer ofthe virtual computer system service 202. In some embodiments, themanagement sub-system 206 generates a reservation identifier for eachdedication such as a randomly-generated alphanumeric value, a value thatrelates to the characteristics of the customer that has submitted therequest to create the reservation (e.g., Bob's first reservation), avalue that relates to the characteristics of the reserved dedicatedserver (e.g., Instance Type ABC reservation), a sequence number, or asequence number or other value that has been obfuscated (e.g., throughencryption). This reservation identifier may be stored within thedatabase in association with an identifier used by the service 202 toidentify the dedicated server 212. Further, the management sub-system206 may provide this reservation identifier to the customer.

Once one or more dedicated servers 212 have been reserved for thecustomer, the customer, through the interface 204, may submit a request(e.g., “RunInstances” web service or other API call) to the virtualcomputer system service 202 to instantiate one or more virtual machineimages 208 onto one of these dedicated servers 212. For instance, in anembodiment, the customer, through the interface 204, submits a requestto the management sub-system 206 (e.g., “DescribeServers” web service orother API call) to obtain a server identifier for each dedicated server212 reserved for the customer or otherwise being utilized by thecustomer. Once the customer has obtained these one or more serveridentifiers from the management sub-system 206, the customer maygenerate a request that may include a server identifier corresponding tothe dedicated server 212 that should be used for instantiating thevirtual machine image 208. In response to the request, the managementsub-system 206 may access the server data store 214 to determine if theidentified server has been dedicated to a particular customer. If so,the management sub-system 206 may access the customer's profile 216 todetermine if this particular customer is authorized to use the dedicatedserver 212 for instantiating a virtual machine image 208. If so, themanagement sub-system 206 may instantiate the virtual machine image 208on the selected dedicated server 212, if the dedicated server 212 hassufficient capacity to support the virtual machine instance. In someembodiments, the management sub-system 206 may include a placementserver, which may be configured to select from the plurality ofdedicated servers 212 a dedicated server for the virtual machineinstance in a manner that respects the plurality of dedications in theserver data store 214.

In an embodiment, each dedicated server 212 allocated to the customerincludes an “AutoPlacement” parameter, which, when set to “TRUE,” mayenable the management sub-system 206 to automatically run a virtualmachine instance within the dedicated server 212. The customer, throughthe interface 204, may change, through use of the“ModifyServerAttribute” web service or other API, the “AutoPlacement”parameter of a dedicated server 212 to “FALSE” to prevent the managementsub-system 206 from automatically running a virtual machine instancewithin the dedicated server 212, thus requiring the customer to specifythat the virtual machine instance is to be run from this dedicatedserver 212. If the customer does not select a server identifier throughthe interface 204 when submitting a request to run a virtual machineinstance, the management sub-system 206 may identify any dedicatedservers 212 allocated for the customer that have the “AutoPlacement”parameter set to “TRUE” and automatically select any of these identifieddedicated servers 212 for running the virtual machine instance.

If the customer has not previously reserved a dedicated server 212 orthe customer's selected dedicated server 212 does not have sufficientcapacity to support the virtual machine instance, the managementsub-system 206 may access the server data store 214 to identify, fromthe pool of dedicated servers 212 and/or non-dedicated servers 210, anyservers that have not been allocated to another customer and that can beused to instantiate the virtual machine image 208. If the managementsub-system 206 is able to identify at least one server that can be usedto instantiate the virtual machine image 208, the management sub-system206 may allocate the identified server to the customer on-demand andinstantiate the virtual machine image 208. Additionally, the managementsub-system 206 may update the server data store 214 and the customer'sprofile 216 to specify that the identified dedicated server 212 has beenallocated to the customer on-demand. The management sub-system 206 mayfurther generate a reservation identifier for the identified server andprovide this identifier to the customer for future use.

At any time, a customer may submit a request, through the interface 204,to release one or more dedicated servers 212 allocated for thecustomer's use. For instance, the customer may submit a “ReleaseServer”web service or other API call, through the interface 204, to themanagement sub-system 206 to release the one or more dedicated servers212. In response to the request, the management sub-system 206 may stopany virtual machine instances operating within these one or morededicated servers 212 and specify, within the server data store 214,that these dedicated servers 212 are once again available forallocation, either as a dedicated server 212 for another customer or asa non-dedicated server 210 for use by a variety of customerssimultaneously. Alternatively, if these one or more dedicated servers212 have been reserved for the customer, the management sub-system 206may stop the virtual machine instances and enable allocation of thecustomer's other resources within these dedicated servers 212. Themanagement sub-system 206 may further access the customer's profile 216to specify the identifiers for the released dedicated servers 212 andthe corresponding virtual machine instances previously operating withinthese dedicated servers 212.

In an embodiment, each dedicated server 212 includes an “AutoRelease”parameter, which may be utilized to specify whether a dedicated server212 is to be released automatically in the event that the customer stopsor otherwise terminates all virtual machine instances on the dedicatedserver 212. For instance, if the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to“TRUE” for a dedicated server 212, the management sub-system 206 mayautomatically release this dedicated server 212 upon determination thatthere are no virtual machine instances running on the dedicated server212. For instance, if the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE” andthe dedicated server 212 has no running virtual machine instances, themanagement sub-system 206 may remove a reservation identifier fromdedicated server 212 entry within the server database (if provisionedon-demand) and enable other customers to utilize the dedicated server212. Alternatively, if the dedicated server 212 has been reserved forthe customer, the management sub-system 206 may maintain the reservationidentifier, thus enabling the customer to continue exclusive use of thededicated server 212. However, if the “AutoRelease” parameter for thededicated server 212 is set to “FALSE,” the customer would be requiredto submit a request, through the interface 204, to release the dedicatedserver 212. This may include using the “ReleaseServer” API, as describedabove. In order to modify the “AutoRelease” parameter for a dedicatedserver 212, the customer may utilize the “ModifyServerAttribute” webservice or other API, as described above, to toggle the parameter from“TRUE” to “FALSE” and vice versa.

Through the interface 204, the customer may later submit a request tore-launch a stopped virtual machine instance on a dedicated server 212.In response to the request, the management sub-system 206 may access thecustomer's profile 216 to determine which dedicated server 212 wasutilized to operate the virtual machine instance. Subsequently, themanagement sub-system 206 may access the server data store 214 todetermine whether the dedicated server 212 utilized to operate thevirtual machine instance is still available for use. For instance, ifthe dedicated server 212 was allocated to the customer on-demand, themanagement sub-system 206 may locate the server and determine whether itis still available for dedicated use and if it has sufficient capacityto support the virtual machine instance. If the server is not availablefor dedicated use or has insufficient capacity to support the virtualmachine instance, the management sub-system 206 may identify a newdedicated server 212 that may be allocated to the customer and iscapable of supporting the virtual machine instance.

If the dedicated server 212 was reserved for the customer, themanagement sub-system 206 may determine whether the reserved dedicatedserver 212 has the available capacity for the virtual machine instance.If so, the management sub-system 206 may launch the virtual machineinstance within this dedicated server 212. Otherwise, the managementsub-system 206 may access the server database to determine whether anyother dedicated servers 212 have been reserved for the customer. If so,the management sub-system 206 may identify a different reserveddedicated server 212 that has sufficient capacity for the virtualmachine instance. For instance, in some embodiments, the managementsub-system 206 may identify any reserved dedicated servers 212 with the“AutoPlacement” parameter set to “TRUE.” These identified dedicatedservers 212 may be utilized for automatic placement of a virtual machineinstance. If no other reserved dedicated servers 212 are available, themanagement sub-system 206 may provision a new dedicated server 212 fromthe pool of available dedicated servers 212 and/or non-dedicated servers210.

As noted above, a customer may provide an operating system volumelicense to the virtual computer system service, which may be used tolaunch one or more virtual machine instances in a dedicated server. Theoperating system volume license may enable the customer to launch andmaintain virtual machine instances in a single dedicated server,utilizing the same hardware for these instances. This may reduce theallocation cost of the customer's virtual machine instances, as thecustomer may not be required to report and account for an additionallicense use. Accordingly, FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of anenvironment 300 in which a customer 302 provides one or more operatingsystem licenses 304 for instantiating one or more virtual machine images316 in a dedicated server 312 in accordance with at least oneembodiment. In the environment 300, the customer 302, through one ormore associated computing devices or clients, may access the virtualcomputer system service 306 using an interface 308. Through theinterface 308, the customer 302 may request, such as through a“PurchaseReservedServer” web service or other API call to the service306, that one or more dedicated servers 312 be reserved for his/her ownpurposes. As noted above, in response to this request, the managementsub-system 310 may access a server data store 314 to identify one ormore dedicated servers 312 that may be used to fulfill the customer'sreservation request and specify, within a server database within thedata store 314, that these one or more dedicated servers 312 arereserved for the customer 302.

Additionally, the customer 302, through the interface 308, may selectone or more virtual machine images 316 that may be instantiated in oneor more of the customer's 302 reserved dedicated servers 312 or on anon-demand dedicated server 312 (e.g., through use of the “AcquireServer”web service or other API) if the customer 302 has not previouslyreserved a dedicated server 312 for his/her exclusive use. The selectedone or more virtual machine images 316 may require that the customer 302provide his/her own operating system volume license 304 in order toenable instantiation of these one or more virtual machine images 316 ona dedicated server 312. The operating system volume license 304 mayrequire the customer 302 to pay for each use of the license resultingfrom the instantiation of a virtual machine image 316 onto a dedicatedserver 312. Thus, for each distinct dedicated server 312 used toinstantiate the virtual machine image 316, the customer 302 may berequired to pay an additional use fee under the terms of the operatingsystem volume license 304.

Once the customer 302 has provided the operating system volume license304 to the virtual computer system service 306 through the interface308, the management sub-system 310 may update the server database withinthe server data store 314 to specify the operating system volume license304 attached to the one or more virtual machine images 316 instantiatedin a dedicated server 312. Additionally, as described above, themanagement sub-system may record this license 304 within the customer'sprofile for later verification of the customer's 302 authority to launchvirtual machine images 316 associated with the operating system volumelicense 304. The management sub-system 310, upon verifying the validityof the operating system volume license 304, may obtain the selected oneor more virtual machine images 316 and instantiate these virtual machineimages 316 in one or more dedicated servers 312. The one or morededicated servers 312 may be selected by the customer 302 through theinterface 308, if previously reserved, or automatically provisioned tothe customer 302 on-demand. In some embodiments, if the customer 302does not specify a particular dedicated server 312 for the virtualmachine instance, the management sub-system 310 may access the serverdata store 314 to identify any reserved dedicated servers 312 that mayhave their “AutoPlacement” parameter set to “TRUE.” If the“AutoPlacement” parameter for a dedicated server 312 is set to “TRUE,”the management sub-system 310 may automatically instantiate a virtualmachine image within the dedicated server 312. Alternatively, if theparameter is set to “FALSE,” the customer 302 may be required to selectthe dedicated server 312 through the interface 308 in order for themanagement sub-system 310 to instantiate the virtual machine imagewithin the dedicated server 312. If the one or more dedicated servers312 are provisioned on-demand, the management sub-system 310 mayspecify, within the server data store 314 that these dedicated servers312 have been allocated for exclusive use by the customer 302.

In some embodiments, the management sub-system 310 may transmit theoperating system license 304 to a third-party server (e.g., a servermanaged and operated by the operating system provider, an authenticationserver within the customer's 302 on-premises network, etc.) to determinewhether the provided operating system license 304 is valid. Themanagement sub-system 310 may receive, from this third-party server, anotification specifying whether the operating system license 304 isvalid or not. If the operating system license 304 is not valid, themanagement sub-system 310 may deny the customer's 302 request toinstantiate the one or more virtual machine images 316 onto a dedicatedserver 312. However, if the operating system license 304 is valid, themanagement sub-system 310 may obtain the selected one or more virtualmachine images 316 and instantiate these virtual machine images 316 inthe one or more dedicated servers 312.

In an alternative embodiment, the customer 302 is required to activatethe virtual machine instance on the dedicated server 312 using his/heroperating system license 304. For instance, when a virtual machine image316 is instantiated onto one or more dedicated servers 312, a productkey may be installed onto the one or more dedicated servers 312. Thisproduct key may be obtained from one or more servers operated by theoperating system or virtual machine image 316 provider. Alternatively,this product key may be generated automatically upon instantiation ofthe virtual machine image 316. In order to make use of the virtualmachine instance on the one or more dedicated servers 312, the customer302 may transmit his/her operating system license 304, along with theproduct key, to the virtual machine image 316 provider for validation.Accordingly, the provider may determine whether the provided operatingsystem license 304 is valid and, if so, account for the activationagainst this license 304. For example, the customer 302, by virtue ofthe operating system license 304, may be entitled to activate aparticular number of virtual machine images 316. When this limit isreached, the customer 302 may be required to obtain an additionallicense 304 or request (e.g., through payment, etc.) additionalactivations through the license 304. Otherwise, the virtual machineimage 316 provider may deny the customer's 302 request to activate thevirtual machine instance.

At any time, the customer 302 may request that the one or more virtualmachine instances operating within his/her dedicated servers 312 bestopped or that the dedicated servers 312 be released. For example, thecustomer 302 may submit, through the interface 308, a “StopInstances”web service or other API call to the management sub-system 310 to stopone or more virtual machine instances in any dedicated server 312. Thecustomer 302 may further submit, through the interface 308, a“ReleaseServer” web service or other API call to the managementsub-system 310 to request release of one or more dedicated servers 312.In response to such requests, the management sub-system 310 may access adatabase within the server data store 314 to record which one or morededicated servers 312 are associated with these stopped virtual machineinstances. If the one or more dedicated servers 312 are reserved for thecustomer 302, the management sub-system 310 may maintain the reservationfor the customer 302 for his/her later use. However, if the one or morededicated servers 312 were provided to the customer 302 on-demand inresponse to his/her request to instantiate a virtual machine image 316within a dedicated server 312 without a prior reservation, themanagement sub-system 310 may release the one or more dedicated servers312 and enable other customers to reserve these one or more dedicatedservers 312 or otherwise use these released dedicated servers 312 forany of myriad purposes. The management sub-system 310 may additionallyaccess the server data store 314 to specify that these one or morededicated servers 312 have been released. However, the managementsub-system 310 may still specify that the stopped virtual machineinstances were originally operating within these one or more dedicatedservers 312.

As noted above, in some embodiments, each dedicated server 312 mayinclude an “AutoRelease” parameter, which may be utilized to specifywhether a dedicated server 312 is to be released automatically in theevent that the customer 302 stops or otherwise terminates all virtualmachine instances on the dedicated server 312. For instance, if the“AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE” for a dedicated server 312, themanagement sub-system 310 may automatically release this dedicatedserver 312 upon determination that there are no virtual machineinstances running on the dedicated server 312. For instance, if the“AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE” and the dedicated server 312has no running virtual machine instances, the management sub-system 310may remove a reservation identifier from dedicated server 212 entrywithin the server database (if provisioned on-demand) and enable othercustomers to utilize the dedicated server 312. Alternatively, if thededicated server 312 has been reserved for the customer, the managementsub-system 310 may maintain the reservation identifier, thus enablingthe customer to continue exclusive use of the dedicated server 312.However, if the “AutoRelease” parameter for the dedicated server 312 isset to “FALSE,” the customer would be required to submit a request,through the interface 308, to release the dedicated server 312. This mayinclude using the “ReleaseServer” web service or other API, as describedabove. In order to modify the “AutoRelease” parameter for a dedicatedserver 312, the customer may utilize the “ModifyServerAttribute” webservice or other API, as described above, to toggle the parameter from“TRUE” to “FALSE” and vice versa.

In the event that the customer 302 submits a request to re-launch avirtual machine instance on a dedicated server 312, the managementsub-system 310 may access the server data store 314 to determine whetherthe particular virtual machine instance is associated with thecustomer's operating system volume license 304. Additionally, themanagement sub-system 310 may identify, through the database in theserver data store 314, the one or more dedicated servers 312 previouslyused for operation of the virtual machine instance. The managementsub-system 310, based at least in part on this information, maydetermine whether the identified one or more dedicated servers 312 havesufficient capacity for operating the virtual machine instance and theone or more dedicated servers 312 have not been allocated to anothercustomer.

If the one or more dedicated servers 312 have been reallocated toanother customer or do not have the sufficient capacity to support thevirtual machine instance, and the virtual machine instance is subject toan operating system volume license 304, the management sub-system 310may deny the customer's 302 request to re-launch the virtual machineinstance until the one or more dedicated servers 312 become availableagain and/or have sufficient capacity for supporting the virtual machineinstance. Alternatively, the management sub-system 310, through theinterface 308, may inform the customer 302 enable the customer 302 torequest provisioning of a new dedicated server 312 for the virtualmachine instance in exchange for paying the additional license see forutilizing the virtual machine instance on different hardware. In someembodiments, when the customer 302 requests provisioning of a newdedicated server 312 for the virtual machine instance, he/she mayreceive a new product key corresponding to the virtual machine instance,which the customer 302 may need to provide along with the operatingsystem license 304 to the virtual machine image 316 provider (e.g.,third-party provider of operating systems, etc.) to activate the virtualmachine instance.

As noted above, a customer may request provisioning of one or morededicated servers for his/her purposes, including instantiation of oneor more virtual machine images. Each dedicated server may comprise aplurality of slots that may be used to instantiate a virtual machineimage. Accordingly, FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of anenvironment 400 in which one or more virtual machine images areinstantiated in one or more dedicated server slots 412 in accordancewith at least one embodiment. In the environment 400, a customer 402 mayinteract with a virtual computer system service 404 by submitting one ormore requests, such as through one or more API calls to the service 404as described above, through one or more communications networks, such asthe Internet. As noted above, the customer 402 may utilize a customerinterface and a management sub-system 406, provided by the virtualcomputer system service 404, to generate an instance that includes anoperating system and a variety of applications suited to the customer'sneeds.

The management sub-system 406, as noted above, may interact with one ormore servers 408, 410 to instantiate a virtual machine instance byinstalling a machine image into one or more servers 408, 410, dependenton the customer 402 request. Each server 408, 410 may comprise a set ofresources necessary to instantiate a virtual machine instance. However,each server 408, 410 may include different sets of resources based onthe hardware components included in the servers 408, 410. For instance,each server 408, 410 may comprise different processing chip sets,storage devices (e.g. solid-state drives or magnetic disk drives) or RAMnecessary to instantiate one or more virtual machine instances.Accordingly, certain virtual machine instances may be instantiated insome servers 408, 410 but not others.

Each server 408, 410 may comprise one or more slots 412 for theallocation of a virtual machine instance. Each slot 412 may represent anallocation of a set of resources from the server 408, 410 for performingone or more operations in support of the virtual machine instance. Forinstance, a slot may represent half of the processing capabilities of aserver 408, 410. When a customer 402 requests creation of a virtualmachine instance, the customer 402 may be able to specify how large thevirtual machine instance should be. Accordingly, the larger a virtualmachine instance is, the more slots 412 the instance may consume in aserver 408, 410 since a large instance may require additional resourcesto instantiate and support the machine image (e.g., operating system andassociated applications) that is part of the virtual machine instance.If a server 408, 410 comprises fewer computing resources (e.g., usesolder technology such as outdated or obsolete processors and/or storagedevices), the server 408, 410 may only include a small number of slots412 for allocation of a virtual machine instance. Alternatively, a newerserver 408, 410, with greater computing resources, may be able tosupport additional slots 412 and thus accommodate additional virtualmachine instances.

Thus, when a customer 402 submits a request to create a virtual machineinstance to the virtual computer system service 404, the managementsub-system 406 may be configured to access a database within a serverdata store to determine which servers 408, 410 comprise the necessaryresources to instantiate the instance. Additionally, the managementsub-system 406 may determine, of these servers 408, 410, which server408, 410 comprises the necessary slots 412 for allocation. Accordingly,the management sub-system 406 may instantiate the virtual machineinstance into a server 408, 410 with the resources and slots 412necessary to support the instance.

As noted above, a customer 402 may submit a request to the virtualcomputer system service 404, such as through a “PurchaseReservedServer”web service or other API call to the service 404, to reserve andprovision one or more dedicated servers 408 that may be used for thecustomer's 402 exclusive use. The customer 402 may specify the desiredhardware configuration (e.g., number of slots, available capacity, etc.)for these dedicated servers 408, which may be added to the customer's402 dedicated server pool 414 for instantiation of one or more virtualmachine images. For instance, the customer 402 may specify, for eachdedicated server 408 that is to be added to the customer's dedicatedserver pool 414, the number of slots 412 that are to made available forhis/her use, the size (e.g., capacity, hardware allocation, etc.) foreach of these slots 412, the available bandwidth for these slots 412 andthe like. The management sub-system 406 may identify, from the availableservers 408, 410 (e.g., non-dedicated servers and dedicated servers thathave not been allocated to another customer), one or more servers thatsatisfy the customer's 402 criteria and may add these servers to thecustomer's dedicated server pool 414.

In some embodiments, the customer 402 may reconfigure each dedicatedserver 408 within his/her dedicated server pool 414 at any time. Forinstance, if a dedicated server 408 has no virtual machine instancesoperating within it, the customer 402 may transmit a request to themanagement sub-system 406, such as through one or more API calls (e.g.,a “ModifyReservedServers” web service or other API call) to themanagement sub-system 406, to reconfigure the number of slots 412 withinthe dedicated server 408 as needed. For example, through an interfaceprovided by the virtual computer system service 404, the customer 402may configure his/her dedicated servers 408 and corresponding slots 412to satisfy his/her needs (e.g., number of slots, processing capabilitiesfor each slot, available storage capacity for each slot, etc.).Subsequently, the management sub-system 406 may receive this requestfrom the customer 402 and configure the dedicated servers 408 as needed.In an alternative embodiment, the customer 402 is provided with direct,administrative control over his/her dedicated servers 408 within thededicated server pool 414. The customer 402, under such circumstances,may access the dedicated servers 408 directly and configure thesededicated servers 408 himself/herself through modification of aconfiguration file to specify how the slots 412 are configured. In someembodiments, the customer 402 can reconfigure any unused slots 412within a dedicated server 408 even if one or more slots 412 arecurrently in use for virtual machine instances. Under suchcircumstances, the management sub-system 406 may ensure that anyreconfiguring of the dedicated server 408 satisfies the hardwarecapabilities of the dedicated server 408 and does not negatively impactany operating instances.

In an embodiment, the customer 402 can specify certain proximityparameters that are to be used to provision the one or more dedicatedservers 408 that are to be added to the customer's dedicated server pool414. For instance, a customer 402 may specify, through one or more APIcalls to the management sub-system 406, that the one or more dedicatedservers 408 are to be separated from one another (e.g., different serverrack, different datacenter room, different datacenters, differentregions, etc.) in order to prevent correlated failures. For example,through use of the “ModifyReservedServers” web service or other API, thecustomer 402 may specify a desired location or data zone for eachdedicated server 408 within the customer's dedicated server pool 414.This may result in generation of a new reservation identifier for eachdedicated server 408 modified in this manner. Alternatively, in order toreduce network latency, the customer 402 may specify that the one ormore dedicated servers 408 are to be in relative proximity to oneanother (e.g., same server rack, same datacenter room, etc.). In someembodiments, the management sub-system 406 may automatically select thededicated servers 408 according to its own placement rules if thecustomer 402 does not provide any parameters for selection of the one ormore dedicated servers 408. For instance, the management sub-system 406may be configured to identify any reserved dedicated servers 408 withinthe customer's dedicated server pool 414 to determine the physicallocation of these dedicated servers 408. Subsequently, the managementsub-system 406 may utilize a placement algorithm to identify a dedicatedserver 408 that may fulfill the customer's request for a new dedicatedserver 408 and satisfies one or more criteria for preventing correlatedfailures. In some embodiments, the management sub-system 406 may attemptto utilize the customer's preferences for allocation of the dedicatedserver 408 and, if such allocation is not possible, utilize its ownalgorithm to identify the dedicated server 408 for allocation to thecustomer 402.

When the customer 402 submits a request to the virtual computer systemservice 404 to instantiate one or more virtual machine images onto adedicated server 408, the customer 402 may specify which particularreserved dedicated server 408 may receive the virtual machine instance.The management sub-system 406 may access the database within the serverdata store to determine whether the selected dedicated server 408 withinthe dedicated server pool 414 has enough slots 412 available forinstantiating the one or more virtual machine images. If the selecteddedicated server 408 does not have sufficient slots 412 available tosupport the virtual machine instance, the management sub-system 406 maydetermine whether any other dedicated servers 408 within the customer'sdedicated server pool 414 comprise sufficient slots 412 to support thevirtual machine instance. If so, the virtual machine instance may belaunched through the identified dedicated server 408. However, if nodedicated server 408 within the customer's dedicated server pool 414 hassufficient capacity to support the requested virtual machine instance,the management sub-system 406 may identify, from the database within theserver data store, any available servers 410 outside of the customer'sdedicated server pool 414 that can be dedicated to the customer 402, aserver 410 that may be used to instantiate the virtual machine image.This server 410 may subsequently be added to the customer's dedicatedserver pool 414.

If the customer 402 wishes to re-launch a stopped virtual machineinstance at a later time, the management sub-system 406 may identifywhich dedicated server 408 was utilized for the virtual machine instanceand determine whether this dedicated server 408 has sufficient slot 412capacity to support the virtual machine instance. Further, themanagement sub-system 406 may determine whether this dedicated server408 has been allocated for another customer, released from thecustomer's dedicated server pool 414, or is still available within thecustomer's dedicated server pool 414. If the previously used dedicatedserver 408 is available, the management sub-system 406 may allocate thededicated server 408 to the customer's dedicated server pool 414 (if notalready within the pool) and re-launch the virtual machine instance inthe dedicated server 408. Otherwise, the management sub-system 406 mayidentify a new server 408, 410 that may be allocated to the customer andused to re-launch the virtual machine instance. The managementsub-system 406 may select a server 408, 410 that has a number of slots412 approximately equal to the number of slots 412 included within theoriginal dedicated server 408. The selected server 408, 410 may be addedto the dedicated server pool 414 for the customer 402.

As noted above, the server data store of the virtual computer systemservice may include a database, which may include a description of thevarious servers maintained by the virtual computer system service. Eachserver entry within the database may specify whether the correspondingserver may, for instance, be automatically released in the event thatthere are no running virtual machine instances within the server.Further, the server entry may specify whether the management sub-systemof the virtual computer system service may automatically place virtualmachine instances within the server upon customer request for starting avirtual machine instance. Accordingly, FIG. 5 shows an illustrativeexample of a database 500 comprising information for one or more serversprovided by the virtual computer system service in accordance with atleast one embodiment.

The database 500 may include one or more columns that may be used todescribe each server operated and maintained by the virtual computersystem service. For instance, the database 500 may include a serveridentifier column 502, which may be used to specify, for each server, aserver identifier. The management sub-system of the virtual computersystem service may assign a server identifier to each individual servermaintained and operated by the virtual computer system service that ismade available for running virtual machine instances. For instance, whena new server is added to a fleet of dedicated servers or a fleet ofgeneral purpose (e.g., non-dedicated) servers, the management sub-systemmay automatically assign a server identifier to the new server andcreate an entry within the database 500 for the new server that includesat least this server identifier.

In addition to the server identifier column 502, the database 500 mayinclude a reservation identifier column 504. This reservation identifiercolumn 504 may be used by the management sub-system to specify areservation identifier associated with each server identified throughthe server identifier column 502. For instance, as noted above, themanagement sub-system may generate a reservation identifier for eachdedication such as a randomly generated alphanumeric value, a value thatrelates to the characteristics of the customer that has submitted therequest to create the reservation (e.g., Bob's first reservation), avalue that relates to the characteristics of the reserved dedicatedserver (e.g., Instance Type ABC reservation), a sequence number, or asequence number or other value that has been obfuscated (e.g., throughencryption). This reservation identifier may be stored within thedatabase 500 in the reservation identifier column 504 and in associationwith a server identifier used to identify the server. Further, themanagement sub-system may provide this reservation identifier to thecustomer upon assignment of the reservation identifier. It should benoted that not every server entry within the database 500 may include areservation identifier within the reservation identifier column 504 asany number of servers may not be allocated or otherwise reserved for aparticular customer. Thus, for these servers, the reservation identifierentry may be blank.

The database 500 may include one or more server configuration columns,which may be used to describe the hardware and software specificationsfor each server provided by the virtual computer system service. Forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 5, the database 500 may include aprocessors column 506, which may be used to specify the number ofphysical processors for each server. The database 500 may includeadditional server configuration columns based at least in part on theconfiguration of the servers and the amount of information to beincluded within the database 500. For instance, the database 500 mayinclude a server type column, which may be used to specify aconfiguration identifier for each server. This configuration identifiermay be used by the virtual computer system service to identify thehardware configuration (e.g., storage capacity, number of hard drives,number of slots, etc.) for a server. Further, the database 500 mayinclude a server operating system (OS) column, which may be used tospecify, for each server, the OS supported by the server. For instance,each server may be configured to accommodate virtual machine instancesthat utilize a particular OS. Thus, the server OS column may be used toidentify any servers that may be used to accommodate a virtual machineinstance.

The running instances column 508 within the database 500 may be used tospecify the number of running virtual machine instances within eachserver specified within the database 500. For instance, a customer maysubmit a request (e.g., “RunInstances” web service or other API call) tothe virtual computer system service to instantiate one or more virtualmachine images onto one or more servers. For instance, in an embodiment,the customer, through an interface provided by the virtual computersystem service, submits a request to the management sub-system (e.g.,“DescribeServers” web service or other API call) to obtain a serveridentifier for each server reserved for the customer or otherwise beingutilized by the customer. The customer may generate a request that mayinclude a server identifier corresponding to the server that should beused for instantiating the virtual machine image. The managementsub-system may evaluate the database 500 to identify the number ofrunning instances specified within the running instances column 508 todetermine whether the identified server has any slots available for therequested virtual machine instance. If there are slots available, themanagement sub-system may increment the specific running instances entryfor the server by the number of instances added to the server. However,if the server has no capacity for another virtual machine instance, theserver may identify any other servers allocated to the customer that maybe used to run the requested instance.

As noted above, each dedicated server may include an “AutoRelease”parameter, which may be utilized to specify whether a dedicated serveris to be released automatically in the event that the customer stops orotherwise terminates all virtual machine instances on the dedicatedserver. For instance, if the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE”for a dedicated server, the management sub-system may automaticallyrelease this dedicated server upon determination that there are novirtual machine instances running on the dedicated server. For instance,if the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE” and the dedicated serverhas no running virtual machine instances, the management sub-system mayremove a reservation identifier from dedicated server entry within theserver database (if provisioned on-demand) and enable other customers toutilize the dedicated server. Alternatively, if the dedicated server hasbeen reserved for the customer, the management sub-system may maintainthe reservation identifier, thus enabling the customer to continueexclusive use of the dedicated server. However, if the “AutoRelease”parameter for the dedicated server is set to “FALSE,” the customer wouldbe required to submit a request, through the interface, to release thededicated server. This parameter may be specified within the database500 through the Auto Release parameter column 510. The managementsub-system may determine, based at least in part on the runninginstances column 508 within the database 500, whether a server no longerhas any running instances. If so, the management sub-system may refer tothe Auto Release parameter column 510 to determine whether the server isto be released (e.g., reservation identifier is removed from thereservation identifier column 504). In order to modify the “AutoRelease”parameter for a dedicated server, the customer may utilize the “ModifyServerAttribute” web service or other API, as described above, to togglethe parameter from “TRUE” to “FALSE” and vice versa. This may cause themanagement sub-system to access the database 500 to modify the“AutoRelease” parameter for the selected server within the Auto Releaseparameter column 510.

The database 500 may further include an Auto Placement parameter column512, which may be used to modify an automatic placement parameter andspecify whether a virtual machine instance may be automatically added toa server or a customer is required to specifically request that avirtual machine instance be placed in the server. As noted above, eachdedicated server allocated to the customer includes an “AutoPlacement”parameter, which, when set to “TRUE,” may enable the managementsub-system to automatically run a virtual machine instance within thededicated server. The customer, through the interface, may change,through use of the “ModifyServerAttribute” web service or other API, the“AutoPlacement” parameter of a dedicated server to “FALSE” to preventthe management sub-system from automatically running a virtual machineinstance within the dedicated server 212, thus requiring the customer tospecify that the virtual machine instance is to be run from thisdedicated server. If the customer does not select a server identifierthrough the interface when submitting a request to run a virtual machineinstance, the management sub-system may access the database 500 andutilize the Auto Placement parameter column 512 to identify anydedicated servers allocated for the customer that have the“AutoPlacement” parameter set to “TRUE” and automatically select any ofthese identified dedicated servers for running the virtual machineinstance.

As noted above, a virtual computer system service may receive a requestfrom a customer to reserve and provision one or more dedicated servers,which may be provided to the customer for his/her exclusive use and forlaunching one or more virtual machine instances. Accordingly, FIG. 6shows an illustrative example of a process 600 for provisioning one ormore dedicated servers for at least one virtual machine instance basedat least in part on a customer request in accordance with at least oneembodiment. The process 600 may be performed by a management sub-systemof the virtual computer system service, which may be configured toaccess a server data store to evaluate a variety of servers availablefor launching virtual machine instances to determine whether any ofthese servers may be dedicated to its customers upon request. Further,the management sub-system may be configured to access and modify serverdatabase within the server data store, which the management sub-systemmay use to indicate allocation of one or more dedicated servers to aparticular customer.

A customer of the virtual computer system service may submit a requestto the virtual computer system service to reserve one or more dedicatedservers that may be used to launch one or more virtual machineinstances. For instance, this request may be submitted through an“AcquireServer” web service or other API call to the service and mayspecify particular attributes that ideally these one or more dedicatedservers should include. For instance, a customer may specify the numberand size of the slots to be included within the dedicated server, aswell as other hardware specifications (e.g., memory size, storagecapacity, processor capabilities, etc.). Additionally, if the customerwishes to reserve a dedicated server, the request may be submittedthrough a “PurchaseReservedServer” web service or other API call to theservice. Thus, the management sub-system may receive 602, through aninterface provided to the customer by the virtual computer systemservice, a request from the customer to provision at least one dedicatedserver that is to be dedicated exclusively for the customer's needs.

Once the management sub-system has received the request from thecustomer through the interface, the management sub-system may access theserver data store to identify 604 any available servers that aresuitable for dedication to the customer. For instance, managementsub-system may evaluate a database within the server data store toidentify any servers that have the requisite capacity and capabilitiesas specified by the customer in his/her request. Further, the managementsub-system may use the server database to determine whether theseidentified servers have been allocated to other customers. The serverdatabase, for each server managed by the virtual computer systemservice, may specify an identifier for the one or more customers thathave been allocated at least some capacity of the server. Alternatively,the server database may specify that one or more instances are runningwithin a server that does not have a reservation identifier associatedwith the server. This may serve as an indication that the server isbeing shared by various customers. Thus, if the management sub-systemdetermines, for a given server, that one or more customers other thanthe requesting customer are utilizing the particular server, themanagement sub-system may deem the particular server to be unsuitablefor dedication.

Based at least in part on the management sub-system's analysis of thevarious servers, the management sub-system may determine 606 if anydedicated servers are available for the exclusive use of the customer.For instance, if the management sub-system is unable to identify, basedat least in part on the various server entries within the serverdatabase, any available servers that are suitable for dedication, themanagement sub-system may deny 608 the customer's request, as theservers either do not satisfy the customer's criteria for selection of adedicated server or the servers that do satisfy the criteria are allallocated to other customers of the virtual computer system service.However, if the management sub-system identifies one or more serversthat may be dedicated for the exclusive use of the customer, themanagement sub-system may provision 610 a dedicated server for thecustomer that satisfies the customer's criteria for selection. Further,in some embodiments, the management sub-system may generate areservation identifier for the dedicated server, which may represent thecustomer's pool of dedicated servers, and send the reservationidentifier to the customer. Thus, if the customer reserves additionaldedicated servers, the management sub-system may utilize the samereservation identifier for these additional dedicated servers.Alternatively, a reservation identifier may be generated for eachdedicated server reserved by the customer in response to distinctrequests made by the customer for allocation of dedicated servers. Themanagement sub-system, upon creation of a reservation identifier for adedicated server, may access the server database and modify the serverentry to include this reservation identifier.

The management sub-system, upon provisioning the dedicated server inresponse to the customer's request, may update 612 the server databasewithin the server data store to indicate that the dedicated server hasbeen assigned to the customer. As noted above, the server database mayinclude an entry for each server maintained by the virtual computersystem service. This entry may be used to specify the various virtualmachine instances operating within the server, the correspondingcustomers for whom these virtual machine instances have beeninstantiated, and one or more virtual machine instances that may havepreviously been launched through the particular server. The managementsub-system may update this entry to specify that the entire dedicatedserver has been allocated to the customer, thereby preventing any othercustomer from utilizing the server or the management sub-system fromallocating any capacity of this server to another customer. The updateto this entry may include generation of the aforementioned reservationidentifier and addition of the reservation identifier to the serverentry in the database. The virtual computer system service maysubsequently enable 614 the customer to launch one or more virtualmachine instances within the dedicated server.

As noted above, a customer may submit a request to the virtual computersystem service to launch one or more virtual machine instances in adedicated server. The customer may have previously reserved one or morededicated servers for his/her exclusive use, such as through the processdescribed above in connection with FIG. 6. Alternatively, the customermay be issued with an on-demand dedicated server in response to his/herrequest, should the customer not have any reserved dedicated servers forhis/her exclusive use. Accordingly, FIG. 7 shows an illustrative exampleof a process 700 for launching a virtual machine instance within adedicated server in accordance with at least one embodiment. The process700 may be performed by a management sub-system of the virtual computersystem service, which may be configured to access a server databasewithin a server data store to analyze any of the customer's dedicatedservers and to verify customer operating system volume licenses asneeded for launching the requested virtual machine instance.

At any time, the management sub-system may receive 702, through aninterface configured to enable customer interaction with the virtualcomputer system service, a request from a customer to launch a virtualmachine instance in a dedicated server. In some embodiments, if thecustomer has previously reserved one or more dedicated servers, therequest may specify a particular server that the virtual computer systemservice should use in launching the requested virtual machine instance.For instance, the customer may specify, through a “RunInstance” webservice or other API call to the management sub-system, a reservationidentifier, which the management sub-system may use to identify anydedicated servers reserved for the customer. The management sub-systemmay provide corresponding server identifiers for each dedicated servercovered by the reservation identifier to the customer through theinterface. The customer may select any of these server identifiers tospecify that the instance is to be initiated within the particulardedicated server. Alternatively, if the customer has not reserved adedicated server for his/her exclusive use, the customer may specify,through the request, attributes of the server that should be allocatedto the customer on-demand when launching the virtual machine instance.For example, the customer may submit a web service request to an“AcquireServer” web service or other API and pass in the requestparameters such as an account identifier for the customer, virtualmachine instance types the customer would like to host on the dedicatedserver, information such as a number of processors, amount of memory,amount of storage, amount of networking capacity, etc. The request mayfurther specify an identifier or other designation for a virtual machineimage that is to be used to launch the virtual machine instance.

Thus, the management sub-system may determine 704 whether the customerhas specified, through an interface, a specific dedicated server thatshould be used to launch the virtual machine instance. For instance, ifthe customer has previously reserved one or more dedicated servers forhis/her exclusive use and has provided a reservation identifier forhis/her pool of dedicated servers or a particular reserved dedicatedserver, the management sub-system may present to the customer, throughthe interface, server identifiers for each of these one or morededicated servers that may be available for the customer's exclusiveuse. The customer, through the interface, may then select an identifierfor a dedicated server, which may serve as an indication of thecustomer's selection of a particular dedicated server that is to be usedto launch the virtual machine instance. Alternatively, the customer maynot be required to select a server identifier, which may serve as anindication to the management sub-system that the virtual machineinstance may be placed in a dedicated server that has an “AutoPlacement”parameter set to “TRUE” and has sufficient capacity available forplacement of the instance.

If the customer, through the interface, has selected a specificdedicated server that should be used to launch the desired virtualmachine instance, the management sub-system may determine 706 whetherthe specific dedicated server selected by the customer has the availablecapacity to support the virtual machine instance. For instance, themanagement sub-system may access the server database within the serverdata store to evaluate the specific dedicated server and determine whatavailable capacity is there for launching virtual machine instances.Capacity may be measured in various ways, such as in slots, CPUcapacity, memory capacity, and/or in other ways. In some embodiments,the management sub-system may evaluate the server type, as well as thenumber of currently running instances to determine whether there isavailable capacity within the server for the virtual machine instance.If the virtual computer system service determines, based at least inpart on an evaluation of the specified dedicated server, that there isavailable capacity to support the virtual machine instance, the virtualcomputer system service may launch 716 the virtual machine instance inthe selected dedicated server. Additionally, the virtual computer systemservice may access the server database within the server data store toupdate the entry for the dedicated server to indicate that the virtualmachine instance has been launched using this particular dedicatedserver. This may include updating the running instances entry for theparticular dedicated server.

In an embodiment, the management sub-system of the virtual computersystem service will require the customer to provide one or moreoperating system volume licenses in order to utilize the selectedvirtual machine image for launching the virtual machine instance. Thus,the management sub-system may determine if a customer's operating systemvolume license is required for launching the virtual machine instance.If such a license is required, the management sub-system may determineif said license is available for use. For instance, the customer may berequired to provide his/her operating system volume license whensubmitting the request to launch the virtual machine instance on adedicated server. Alternatively, the customer may purchase the operatingsystem volume license directly through the virtual computer systemservice. If the operating system volume license is required but is notavailable (e.g., has not been provided by the customer or the virtualcomputer system service does not have a valid license on file for theparticular virtual machine image), the management sub-system may denythe customer's request, as the customer may not be authorized to use thevirtual machine image for his/her purposes.

If the specific dedicated server selected by the customer to launch thevirtual machine instance does not have available capacity for launchingthe virtual machine instance, the management sub-system may identify 708one or more dedicated servers that may have previously been allocated tothe customer through a prior reservation. The management sub-system mayaccess the server database within the server data store to locate anyother dedicated servers the customer has reserved for his/her ownexclusive use. The management sub-system may utilize this informationfrom the server database to evaluate these one or more dedicated serversto determine 710 whether these dedicated servers have the availablecapacity for launch of the requested virtual machine instance. In anembodiment, the management sub-system evaluates, for each server entrywithin the server database of the customer's dedicated servers, the“AutoPlacement” parameter for the server to determine whether thevirtual machine instance may be placed within the server. For instance,if the server's “AutoPlacement” parameter is set to “TRUE,” themanagement sub-system may automatically place a virtual machine instancewithin the server. Alternatively, if the “AutoPlacement” parameter isset to “FALSE,” the management sub-system may be required to receive anexplicit request from the customer to place a virtual machine instancewithin the server.

As noted above, the customer may not have previously reserved adedicated server for his/her own exclusive use and thus may not havespecified a specific dedicated server for the virtual machine instance.In such instances, the management sub-system may not be required todetermine 710 available capacity for the customer's dedicated servers asthe customer may not have any allocated to him/her. Thus, the managementsub-system, in response to an “AcquireServer” API call from the customerthrough the interface, may be required to provision 712 a new dedicatedserver for the customer on an on-demand basis (e.g., when the customerreleases the server, it is available for allocation to anothercustomer). Alternatively, the management sub-system may provision 712 anew dedicated server for the customer if the virtual computer systemservice has determined that none of the customer's dedicated servershave the available capacity required for launching of the virtualmachine instance. In order to provision this new dedicated server, themanagement sub-system may access the server database within the serverdata store to identify a server that not only has not been allocated toanother customer (e.g., has no running instances and has not beenassigned a reservation identifier) but also has sufficient capacity andthe necessary specifications to enable launch of the virtual machineinstance. The management sub-system may subsequently update the serverdatabase to indicate that this selected server has been dedicated forthe exclusive use of the customer. For instance, the managementsub-system may generate a new reservation identifier for the customer orutilize an existing reservation identifier for the customer to add theserver to the customer's server pool. Alternatively, if the customer haspreviously reserved one or more dedicated servers for his/her exclusiveuse and one or more of these dedicated servers have sufficient availablecapacity for the virtual machine instance and have been designated asbeing usable for automatic instance placement (e.g., “AutoPlacement”parameter is set to “TRUE”), the management sub-system may select 714 adedicated server from the customer's reserved pool of dedicated servers.

Once the management sub-system has either provisioned a new dedicatedserver for the customer or has selected a dedicated server from thecustomer's pool of dedicated servers, the management sub-system maylaunch 716 the virtual machine instance in the dedicated server.Additionally, the management sub-system may access the server databasewithin the server data store to update the entry for the dedicatedserver to indicate that the virtual machine instance has been launchedusing this particular dedicated server and a corresponding customeridentifier for the virtual machine instance. For instance, themanagement sub-system may update the running instances entry for thededicated server to indicate that a new virtual machine instance isrunning within the server. This may enable the management sub-system totrack the dedicated server used to launch the virtual machine instanceif the instance is stopped by the customer and/or the dedicated serveris released.

As noted above, a customer may at any time transmit a request to thevirtual computer system service to release a dedicated server. Thecustomer, for instance, may submit a web service request to a“ReleaseServer” web service or other API to request that a particulardedicated server be released. The customer may submit such a request ifthe customer is required to pay an hourly rate for use of a dedicatedserver and wishes to release the dedicated server if he/she is no longerutilizing the dedicated server. Alternatively, the dedicated server maybe released in response to the customer's reservation of the dedicatedserver having expired or if no remaining virtual machine instances arerunning within the dedicated server and the “AutoRelease” parameter forthe dedicated server is set to “TRUE”. Accordingly, FIG. 8 shows anillustrative example of a process 800 for releasing a dedicated serverin response to a customer request in accordance with at least oneembodiment. The process 800 may be performed by the managementsub-system of a virtual computer system service, which may be configuredto access existing dedicated servers to release any dedicated servers asrequired. Further, the management sub-system may be configured to accessa server database within a server data store to specify release of thededicated server and any virtual machine instances that may have beenoperating within the released dedicated server.

At any time, the management sub-system may receive 802, through aninterface made available to customers of the virtual computer systemservice, a request from a customer to release a dedicated server. Thecustomer, for instance, may submit a web service request to a“ReleaseServer” web service or other API to request that a particulardedicated server be released. The dedicated server may have beenallocated to the customer on-demand as a result of a prior customerrequest to launch a virtual machine instance within a dedicated serverand the customer not having a previously reserved pool of dedicatedservers for his/her exclusive use. Alternatively, the dedicated servermay have been previously reserved for the customer, wherein thededicated server may be reserved for a specific period of time. Thecustomer may desire to release this reserved server for use with othervirtual machine instances or to have the capacity available for otherpurposes.

Once the management sub-system has received a request to release aparticular dedicated server, the management sub-system may determine 804if there are any virtual machine instances currently running on theselected dedicated server. For instance, the management sub-system mayaccess a server database within the server data store, wherein an entryfor the selected dedicated server may specify an identifier for eachvirtual machine instance currently operating within the dedicatedserver. If the management sub-system determines, based at least in parton this entry within the server database, that one or more virtualmachine instances are operating within the dedicated server, themanagement sub-system may stop 806 these virtual machine instances andmodify the dedicated server entry within the server database to indicatethat these virtual machine instances have now been stopped. In analternative embodiment, if the virtual computer system servicedetermines there are any virtual machine instances running on theselected dedicated server, the virtual computer system service willreject the customer's request until the customer himself/herself hasterminated the running instances. In some embodiments, the managementsub-system may pause the running virtual machine instances within thededicated server. This may enable the customer to resume use of theinstances at a later time without potentially major disruptions to thecustomer's use of these instances.

If the selected dedicated server to be released has no operating virtualmachine instances or the operating virtual machine instances have beenstopped, the management sub-system may determine 808 whether thededicated server to be released is an on-demand dedicated server. If thededicated server was reserved for the customer (e.g., not on-demand),the management sub-system may maintain 810 the customer's reservation ofthe dedicated server within the server database. For instance, themanagement sub-system may access the server database within the serverdata store to modify the entry for the dedicated server to indicate thatthe dedicated server is now available for further resource allocation onbehalf of the customer (e.g., the running instances entry is set to 0).However, the virtual computer system service may not indicate, throughthis entry, that the dedicated server is now available for use by othercustomers. For instance, the reservation identifier entry for theparticular dedicated server may still include the reservation identifierpreviously assigned to the dedicated server and provided to thecustomer.

Alternatively, if the dedicated server is an on-demand dedicated serverallocated to the customer in response to a prior request to launch avirtual machine instance, the management-sub-system may release 812 thededicated server into the server capacity pool for allocation to othercustomers and update the server database within the server data store toindicate the release of this particular dedicated server. For instance,the management sub-system may modify the reservation identifier entryfor the particular dedicated server to indicate that the dedicatedserver is no longer assigned to the customer. The dedicated server maybe released to a specific dedicated server capacity pool, which mayinclude a variety of dedicated servers that may only be provided tocustomers for their exclusive use. Thus, no dedicated server within thiscapacity pool may be shared with other customers. Alternatively, thereleased server may be added to a general capacity pool, which mayinclude one or more servers that may be apportioned to a variety ofcustomers and may be shared among these customers as needed.

In some embodiments, the management sub-system may release 812 thededicated server into the capacity pool with the virtual machineinstances still running within the server. For instance, the managementsub-system may evaluate the one or more virtual machine instancesoperating within the dedicated server to determine whether theseinstances are subject to one or more license obligations (e.g., need tobe operating using dedicated hardware, etc.). If the virtual machineinstances running within the server are not subject to any licenseobligations, the management sub-system may update metadata associatedwith these instances to specify that they are no longer associated withdedicated hardware. Further, the management sub-system may enable othercustomers to utilize any available capacity within this server for theirpurposes.

It should be noted that the process 800 may be performed withadditional, fewer, or alternative operations. For instance, in anembodiment, if the management sub-system determines that a dedicatedserver has no running virtual machine instances, the managementsub-system, in some embodiments, will access the server database withinthe server data store to determine whether the dedicated server is to bereleased. As noted above, each server may include an “AutoRelease”parameter that serves as an indication as to whether the server is to bereleased automatically in the event that there are no running instanceswithin the server. If the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to “TRUE,” themanagement sub-system may release the server automatically. If theserver is linked to a reservation, the management sub-system may stillmaintain the reservation by keeping the reservation identifier for thecustomer within the reservation identifier entry in the server database.However, if the server was provisioned on-demand, the server may bereleased to the server capacity pool for use by any customer.Alternatively, if the “AutoRelease” parameter is set to “FALSE,” themanagement sub-system may not be able to release the server unlessrequested by the customer. Thus, even on-demand servers may still beallocated to the customer even if there are no running instances withinthe server.

As noted above, a customer may, at a later time, wish to re-launch astopped or paused virtual machine instance utilizing a dedicated server.Ideally, the dedicated server selected for re-launching this virtualmachine instance may be the same dedicated server originally used tolaunch and operate the virtual machine instance, as this dedicatedserver may provide the necessary hardware specifications for operatingthe virtual machine instance. Further, if the virtual machine instanceis subject to an operating system volume license, re-launching thevirtual machine instance in the same dedicated server may obviate theneed for the customer to pay an additional license usage fee, as thevirtual machine instance may still be attached to the same hardware.Accordingly, FIG. 9 shows an illustrative example of a process 900 forre-launching a virtual machine instance on a dedicated server inaccordance with at least one embodiment. The process 900 may beperformed by a management sub-system of a virtual computer systemservice, which may be configured to access a server database within aserver data store to identify the dedicated server originally used tooperate the virtual machine instance and other dedicated servers thatmay be used to re-launch the virtual machine instance should theoriginal dedicated server used to run the virtual machine instance is nolonger available.

At any time, the management sub-system may receive 902 a request from acustomer, through an interface provided by the virtual computer systemservice, to re-launch a virtual machine instance on a dedicated server.The customer may have previously had a dedicated server allocated forhis/her exclusive use, through which the virtual machine instance mayhave been used. This dedicated server may have been released uponcustomer request by management sub-system and made available for othercustomers. For instance, if the dedicated server was originally providedto the customer on-demand, the management sub-system may release thededicated server into a pool of available servers which may be allocatedto any customer as needed. Alternatively, if the dedicated server wasoriginally reserved for the customer, and the reservation has notexpired, the management sub-system may maintain the dedicated server forthe customer's exclusive use.

As described above in connection with FIG. 8, when a dedicated server isreleased, the management sub-system may update a corresponding serverdatabase entry within a server data store to specify that any operatingvirtual machine instances within the dedicated server have been stoppedor otherwise paused in response to a customer request or by virtue ofthe server being released. Additionally, for each of these stopped orpaused virtual machine instances, the management sub-system may specify,within the server database, the original dedicated server used tooperate these virtual machine instances. Thus, the virtual computersystem service may identify 904 the original dedicated server associatedwith the virtual machine instance to be re-launched.

Once the management sub-system has identified the original dedicatedserver used to operate the virtual machine instance, the managementsub-system may determine 906 if the original dedicated server has beenreleased to an available capacity pool, which may include one or moreservers that may be dedicated to other customers. If the originaldedicated server has been released to this pool, the managementsub-system may determine 908 whether the original dedicated server isstill available for allocation to the customer. For instance, if theoriginal dedicated server has not been allocated to another customer orhas been apportioned to various customers for their virtual machineinstances, the management sub-system may determine that the originaldedicated server is still available for the customer. Alternatively, ifthe original dedicated server has been apportioned to other customers ofthe virtual computer system service, or another customer has reserved orotherwise provisioned the original dedicated server, the server may beunavailable to the customer for use with his/her virtual machineinstance.

If the management sub-system determines that the original dedicatedserver has been allocated to another customer or is otherwiseunavailable to the customer, the management sub-system may identify 912a new dedicated server for re-launching the virtual machine instance.For example, the management sub-system may access the server databasewithin the server data store to identify any available servers that notonly have not been allocated to another customer, but also have theavailable capacity and specifications to enable re-launch of the virtualmachine instance. For instance, the management sub-system may evaluate avariety of server entries within the database to identify any serversthat do not have a reservation identifier associated with them and alsodo not have any running instances of other customers. Further, themanagement sub-system may evaluate the hardware and softwarespecifications of any of these available servers to determine whetherany of these are capable of being used for the virtual machine instance.The management sub-system, upon identifying a new dedicated server forthe instance, may update the server database to specify that thisidentified server has now been dedicated for the customer's exclusiveuse. This may include generating a new reservation identifier for thededicated server, which may be provided to the customer for later use ifhe/she desires to launch other virtual machine instances within thisdedicated server. Further, the management sub-system may use this newlydedicated server to re-launch 914 the virtual machine instance for thecustomer.

If the original dedicated server has not been released to the pool ofavailable servers and/or has not been allocated to another customer, themanagement sub-system may determine 910 whether the original dedicatedserver still has available capacity for supporting the re-launch of thevirtual machine instance. For instance, if the original dedicated serveris still reserved for the customer's exclusive use, the managementsub-system may determine if the customer has left sufficient capacityavailable within this reserved dedicated server for re-launch of thevirtual machine instance. For instance, the management sub-system mayexamine the server entry within the server database to identify anyrunning instances within the server and, based on these identifiedinstances, determine whether there is sufficient capacity to support anadditional virtual machine instance where capacity of the server may belimited to a number of units, where each virtual machine may have anassigned number of units (e.g., “1” for a standard virtual machine and anumber greater than 1 for a type of virtual machine that receives ahigher resource allocation in one or more respects). If the originaldedicated server does not have the available capacity to supportre-launch of the virtual machine instance or has been allocated toanother customer, the management sub-system may identify 912 a newdedicated server and re-launch 914 the virtual machine instance in thisnew dedicated server. However, if the original dedicated server may beused, the management sub-system may re-launch 916 the virtual machineinstance on the original dedicated server.

It should be noted that in some embodiments, the process 900 may beperformed using additional and/or alternative operations. For instance,the virtual machine instance may be subject to an operating systemvolume license, wherein a customer may be required to pay an additionalfee for each hardware configuration (e.g., server) used to launch thevirtual machine instance. Under such circumstances, the managementsub-system may deny the customer's request to re-launch the virtualmachine instance if the original dedicated server is not available tothe customer as a result of the dedicated server being released to thepool of available servers and allocated for use by another customer.Additionally, the request may be denied if the original dedicated serverno longer has sufficient capacity to support a re-launch of the virtualmachine instance. In some embodiments, instead of immediately denyingthe customer's request, the management sub-system may notify thecustomer, through an interface provided by the virtual computer systemservice, that the original dedicated server is no longer available.Further, the management sub-system may enable the customer to determinewhether he/she would be amenable to paying the license fee should thecustomer still want to re-launch the virtual machine instance utilizinga different dedicated server. If so, the management sub-system mayidentify 912 a new dedicated server and re-launch 914 the virtualmachine instance on this new dedicated server.

As noted above, a customer of the virtual computer system service maysubmit a web service request to a “CreateCapacityGroup” API to generatea capacity group for one or more of the customer's dedicated servers.When a customer submits a request to launch a virtual machine instancewithin a capacity group, the management sub-system of the virtualcomputer system service may determine whether the capacity group hassufficient capacity to support the virtual machine instance. If thecapacity group does not have sufficient capacity to support the virtualmachine instance, the management sub-system may determine whether theinstance may be launched in a parent capacity group within the capacitygroup hierarchy. If so, the management sub-system may launch theinstance within this parent capacity group if there is sufficientcapacity to support the virtual machine instance. If not, the managementsub-system may deny the request. Accordingly, FIG. 10 shows anillustrative example of a process 1000 for launching a virtual machineinstance within a specified capacity group in accordance with at leastone embodiment. The process 1000 may be performed by the aforementionedmanagement sub-system, which may be configured to evaluate a serveraffinity identifier for a virtual machine instance to determine properplacement of the virtual machine instance. Further, the managementsub-system may be configured to access a server database within theserver data store to determine the available capacity of a particularcapacity group, as specified within the request.

At any time, the management sub-system may receive 1002, through aninterface configured to enable customer interaction with the virtualcomputer system service, a request from a customer to launch a virtualmachine instance in a capacity group. As noted above, the customer mayspecify, through a “RunInstance” web service or other API call to themanagement sub-system, a reservation identifier, which the managementsub-system may use to identify any dedicated servers reserved for thecustomer. This reservation identifier may further be used by themanagement sub-system to identify any capacity groups created by thecustomer and that may encompass one or more dedicated servers reservedfor the customer. The management sub-system may provide correspondingcapacity group identifiers for each capacity group covered by thereservation identifier to the customer through the interface. Thecustomer may select any of these capacity group identifiers to specifythat the instance is to be initiated within a particular capacity group.

When the management sub-system receives the request from the customer tolaunch a virtual machine instance using a dedicated server within thespecified capacity group, the management sub-system may determine 1004whether the specified capacity group has the available capacitynecessary to support the virtual machine instance. The managementsub-system may access a server database within the server data store toidentify the one or more dedicated servers that comprise the capacitygroup. For instance, the management sub-system may utilize the capacitygroup identifier to identify any dedicated server entries that includethe same capacity group identifier. This may serve as an indication thata dedicated server is part of the capacity group. Once the managementsub-system has identified the one or more dedicated servers thatcomprise the capacity group, the management sub-system may assess theamount of available capacity within the capacity group and determinewhether any dedicated server of the group may support the virtualmachine instance. If so, the management sub-system may launch 1006 thevirtual machine instance in a dedicated server of the specified capacitygroup.

If the specified capacity group does not have sufficient availablecapacity to support the virtual machine instance, the managementsub-system may determine 1008 the server affinity for the particularvirtual machine instance. As noted above, each virtual machine instancemay include a server affinity identifier, which may be used to determinewhich dedicated servers may be utilized to support the virtual machineinstance. For instance, by default, each virtual machine instance thatis to be initially launched (e.g., not previously stopped or paused)within a specified capacity group may be given a server affinityidentifier that is set to “GROUP” by default. Once the virtual machineinstance has been launched, a customer may submit a web service requestto a “ModifyInstranceAttribute” API to change the server affinityidentifier for the virtual machine instance. For instance, if thecustomer submits a request to change the server affinity identifier fora virtual machine instance from “GROUP” to “SHARED,” the managementsub-system may update the identifier for the virtual machine instancesuch that, if the instance is re-launched at a later time, the virtualmachine instance may be launched within any dedicated server that ispart of the capacity group hierarchy, as will be described in greaterdetail below. Alternatively, the customer may submit a request to changethe server affinity identifier for the virtual machine instance to“SERVER.” This may serve as an indication that the virtual machineinstance may only be launched within a particular dedicated server.Thus, if at a later time there is no available capacity within thespecific dedicated server to support the virtual machine instance uponre-launch, the management sub-system may deny the request to re-launchthe instance.

If the server affinity identifier for the virtual machine instance isset to “GROUP,” the management sub-system may deny 1010 the customer'srequest to launch the virtual machine instance within the capacitygroup, as the capacity group does not have sufficient capacity tosupport the virtual machine instance. However, if the server affinityidentifier for the virtual machine instance is set to “SHARED,” themanagement sub-system may identify 1012 a parent capacity group of thespecified capacity group and determine 1014 whether this parent capacitygroup has sufficient available capacity to support the virtual machineinstance. For instance, the management sub-system may maintain acapacity group hierarchy for the customer's dedicated servers. Thishierarchy may include an overarching default capacity group, which mayencompass each dedicated server allocated to the customer. When thecustomer creates a new capacity group, the customer may specify acapacity group identifier for the capacity group and a path for thecapacity group within the capacity group hierarchy. For example, when acustomer creates a first capacity group, this capacity group may be adirect child of the default capacity group. If the customer generates asecond capacity group, he/she may specify whether this new capacitygroup is a child of either the default group or the first capacity groupgenerated in response to the customer's request. Thus, the customer mayspecify where in the capacity group hierarchy each capacity group mayreside.

If the identified parent capacity group does not have the availablecapacity to support the virtual machine instance, the managementsub-system may determine 1016 whether the identified parent capacitygroup is the default group. If the identified parent capacity group is,in fact, the default group, the management sub-system may deny 1010 thecustomer's request to launch the virtual machine instance, as nodedicated servers are available to support the virtual machine instance.The customer may provision one or more dedicated servers, which may beadded to any capacity group to enable the customer to launch the virtualmachine instance or wait until a dedicated server becomes availablewithin the specified capacity group that can support the virtual machineinstance. However, if the parent capacity group is not the defaultgroup, the management sub-system may identify 1012 the parent capacitygroup of this particular capacity group to try and identify a dedicatedserver that may be used to support the virtual machine instance. If adedicated server is found within a capacity group within the capacitygroup hierarchy, the management sub-system may launch 1018 the virtualmachine instance within the identified capacity group.

FIG. 11 shows an illustrative example of an environment 1100 in whichvarious embodiments can be implemented. In the environment 1100, acomputing resource service provider 1102 may provide a variety ofservices to a customer 1104 or other users. The customer 1104 may be anorganization that may utilize the various services provided by thecomputing resource service provider 1102 to remotely provision andmaintain one or more resources and define a level of access for users ofhis or her resources. As illustrated in FIG. 11, the customer 1104 maycommunicate with the computing resource service provider 1102 throughone or more communications networks 1106, such as the Internet. Somecommunications from the customer 1104 to the computing resource serviceprovider 1102 may cause the computing resource service provider 1102 tooperate in accordance with various techniques described herein orvariations thereof.

As noted above, a computing resource service provider 1102 may providevarious computing resource services to its customers. For instance, inthis particular illustrative example, the computing resource serviceprovider 1102 provides at least seven types of services. The servicesprovided by the computing resource service provider, in this example,include a virtual computer system service 1108, a database service 1110,an object-based data storage service 1112, a block-level data storageservice 1114, a managed queuing service 1116, a notification service1118, a metering service 1120 and one or more other services 1122,although not all embodiments of the present disclosure will include allsuch services and additional services may be provided in addition to oras an alternative to services explicitly described herein.

The virtual computer system service 1108 may be a collection ofcomputing resources configured to instantiate virtual machine instancesonto virtual computer systems on behalf of the customers 1104 of thecomputing resource service provider 1102. Customers 1104 of thecomputing resource service provider 1102 may interact with the virtualcomputer system service 1108 to provision and operate virtual computersystems that are instantiated on physical computing devices hosted(e.g., servers) and operated by the computing resource service provider1102. The virtual computer systems may be used for various purposes,such as to operate as servers supporting a website. Other applicationsfor the virtual computer systems may be to support databaseapplications, electronic commerce applications, business applicationsand/or other applications.

In an embodiment, a management sub-system of the virtual computer systemservice 1108 is configured to assign one or more dedicated servers forthe exclusive use of the customer 1104 upon request. For instance, thecustomer 1104 may reserve one or more dedicated servers for his/herexclusive use, particularly for launching virtual machine instances.Alternatively, if the customer 1104 submits a request to the virtualcomputer system service 1108, through an interface provided by theservice 1108, to launch a virtual machine instance utilizing a dedicatedserver, the management sub-system may access a server database within aserver data store maintained by the virtual computer system service 1108to identify any available servers that may be dedicated for theexclusive use of the customer 1104 and assign one or more dedicatedservers to the customer 1104. This may enable the customer 1104 tolaunch one or more virtual machine instances within these dedicatedservers.

The database service 1110 may be a collection of computing resourcesthat collectively operate to run one or more databases for one or morecustomers 1104. Customers 1104 of the computing resource serviceprovider 1102 may operate and manage a database from the databaseservice 1110 by utilizing appropriately configured API calls. This, inturn, may allow a customer 1104 to maintain and potentially scale theoperations in the database.

The object-based data storage service 1112 may comprise a collection ofcomputing resources that collectively operate to store data for acustomer 1104. The data stored in the data storage service 1112 may beorganized into data objects. The data objects may have arbitrary sizesexcept, perhaps, for certain constraints on size. Thus, the object-baseddata storage service 1112 may store numerous data objects of varyingsizes. The object-based data storage service 1112 may operate as a keyvalue store that associates data objects with identifiers of the dataobjects which may be used by the customer to retrieve or perform otheroperations in connection with the data objects stored by theobject-based data storage service 1112. Access to the object-based datastorage service 1112 may be through appropriately configured API calls.

The block-level data storage service 1114 may comprise a collection ofcomputing resources that collectively operate to store data for acustomer. For instance, the block-level data storage system may beconfigured to provide block-level data storage volumes for use with avirtual machine instance, as noted above. A customer may interact withthe block-level data storage service 1114 to provision a block-leveldata storage volume that, in turn, may be mounted as a storage device(e.g., hard drive) onto a virtual machine instance. The storage volumemay be configured to behave like a raw, unformatted block storage devicewith a block level customer interface. Accordingly, a customer, throughproperly configured API calls to the service, may create a file systemon top of the block-level data storage volumes or utilize the volume asa block-level storage device (e.g., a hard drive).

The managed queuing service 1116 may be a collection of computingresources configured to enable customers 1104 to store one or moremessages in queues for use by one or more services provided by thecomputing resource service provider 1102. Each message that is stored ina queue may comprise one or more appropriately configured API callswhich, when processed by the recipient service, may cause the service toperform one or more actions. Alternatively, each message may compriseany variation of text, such as programming code, URLs for data objectsand other statements.

The notification service 1118 may be a collection of computing resourcesconfigured to enable customers 1104 to send and receive notificationsthrough a communications network 1106. A customer 1104 may utilize aninterface, provided by the computing resource service provider 1102, tocreate or subscribe to one or more subjects to which one or moremessages may be published through. For instance, a customer 1104 may usethe interface to create a new subject and subscribe to this subject byspecifying that any messages published to the subject may be transmittedto a particular location (e.g., electronic mail address, one or moreservers, an existing queue within the managed queuing service 1116,etc.). Accordingly, when a customer 1104 publishes a message to thesubject, the message may be transmitted to each recipient subscribed tothe subject.

The metering service 1120 may provide a variety of services to enableadministrators of the computing resource service provider 1102 todetermine bandwidth pricing for one or more customers 1104 based atleast in part on each customer's bandwidth utilization at certain times.The metering service 1120 may be configured to obtain raw metering datafrom a data storage service, such as the object-based data storageservice 1112 or the block-level data storage service 1114 describedabove, and utilize a map reduce process to aggregate this metering dataat a certain level of granularity (e.g., five minute intervals, fifteenminute intervals, etc.). Further, the metering service may be configuredto categorize the metering data based at least in part on the networkbandwidth flow among the computing resource services provided by thecomputing resource service provider. For instance, the metering servicemay categorize the metering data based at least in part on the flow ofdata through the network (e.g., from the customer 1104 to the computingresource service, from the computing resource service to the customer1104, from a computing resource service to another service, etc.). Thismay enable administrators of the computing resource service provider1102 to identify any customers 1104 that may be driving peak bandwidthusage and apportion a cost burden to these customers 1104.

FIG. 12 illustrates aspects of an example environment 1200 forimplementing aspects in accordance with various embodiments. As will beappreciated, although a web-based environment is used for purposes ofexplanation, different environments may be used, as appropriate, toimplement various embodiments. The environment includes an electronicclient device 1202, which can include any appropriate device operable tosend and/or receive requests, messages or information over anappropriate network 1204 and, in some embodiments, convey informationback to a user of the device. Examples of such client devices includepersonal computers, cell phones, handheld messaging devices, laptopcomputers, tablet computers, set-top boxes, personal data assistants,embedded computer systems, electronic book readers and the like. Thenetwork can include any appropriate network, including an intranet, theInternet, a cellular network, a local area network, a satellite networkor any other such network and/or combination thereof. Components usedfor such a system can depend at least in part upon the type of networkand/or environment selected. Protocols and components for communicatingvia such a network are well known and will not be discussed herein indetail. Communication over the network can be enabled by wired orwireless connections and combinations thereof. In this example, thenetwork includes the Internet, as the environment includes a web server1206 for receiving requests and serving content in response thereto,although for other networks an alternative device serving a similarpurpose could be used as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill inthe art.

The illustrative environment includes at least one application server1208 and a data store 1210. It should be understood that there can beseveral application servers, layers or other elements, processes orcomponents, which may be chained or otherwise configured, which caninteract to perform tasks such as obtaining data from an appropriatedata store. Servers, as used herein, may be implemented in various ways,such as hardware devices or virtual computer systems. In some contexts,servers may refer to a programming module being executed on a computersystem. As used herein, unless otherwise stated or clear from context,the term “data store” refers to any device or combination of devicescapable of storing, accessing and retrieving data, which may include anycombination and number of data servers, databases, data storage devicesand data storage media, in any standard, distributed, virtual orclustered environment. The application server can include anyappropriate hardware, software and firmware for integrating with thedata store as needed to execute aspects of one or more applications forthe client device, handling some or all of the data access and businesslogic for an application. The application server may provide accesscontrol services in cooperation with the data store and is able togenerate content including, but not limited to, text, graphics, audio,video and/or other content usable to be provided to the user, which maybe served to the user by the web server in the form of HyperText MarkupLanguage (“HTML”), Extensible Markup Language (“XML”), JavaScript,Cascading Style Sheets (“CSS”) or another appropriate client-sidestructured language. Content transferred to a client device may beprocessed by the client device to provide the content in one or moreforms including, but not limited to, forms that are perceptible to theuser audibly, visually and/or through other senses including touch,taste, and/or smell. The handling of all requests and responses, as wellas the delivery of content between the client device 1202 and theapplication server 1208, can be handled by the web server using PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor (“PHP”), Python, Ruby, Perl, Java, HTML, XML oranother appropriate server-side structured language in this example. Itshould be understood that the web and application servers are notrequired and are merely example components, as structured code discussedherein can be executed on any appropriate device or host machine asdiscussed elsewhere herein. Further, operations described herein asbeing performed by a single device may, unless otherwise clear fromcontext, be performed collectively by multiple devices, which may form adistributed and/or virtual system.

The data store 1210 can include several separate data tables, databases,data documents, dynamic data storage schemes and/or other data storagemechanisms and media for storing data relating to a particular aspect ofthe present disclosure. For example, the data store illustrated mayinclude mechanisms for storing production data 1212 and user information1216, which can be used to serve content for the production side. Thedata store also is shown to include a mechanism for storing log data1214, which can be used for reporting, analysis or other such purposes.It should be understood that there can be many other aspects that mayneed to be stored in the data store, such as page image information andaccess rights information, which can be stored in any of the abovelisted mechanisms as appropriate or in additional mechanisms in the datastore 1210. The data store 1210 is operable, through logic associatedtherewith, to receive instructions from the application server 1208 andobtain, update or otherwise process data in response thereto. Theapplication server 1208 may provide static, dynamic or a combination ofstatic and dynamic data in response to the received instructions.Dynamic data, such as data used in web logs (blogs), shoppingapplications, news services and other such applications may be generatedby server-side structured languages as described herein or may beprovided by a content management system (“CMS”) operating on, or underthe control of, the application server. In one example, a user, througha device operated by the user, might submit a search request for acertain type of item. In this case, the data store might access the userinformation to verify the identity of the user and can access thecatalog detail information to obtain information about items of thattype. The information then can be returned to the user, such as in aresults listing on a web page that the user is able to view via abrowser on the user device 1202. Information for a particular item ofinterest can be viewed in a dedicated page or window of the browser. Itshould be noted, however, that embodiments of the present disclosure arenot necessarily limited to the context of web pages, but may be moregenerally applicable to processing requests in general, where therequests are not necessarily requests for content.

Each server typically will include an operating system that providesexecutable program instructions for the general administration andoperation of that server and typically will include a computer-readablestorage medium (e.g., a hard disk, random access memory, read onlymemory, etc.) storing instructions that, when executed by a processor ofthe server, allow the server to perform its intended functions. Suitableimplementations for the operating system and general functionality ofthe servers are known or commercially available and are readilyimplemented by persons having ordinary skill in the art, particularly inlight of the disclosure herein.

The environment, in one embodiment, is a distributed and/or virtualcomputing environment utilizing several computer systems and componentsthat are interconnected via communication links, using one or morecomputer networks or direct connections. However, it will be appreciatedby those of ordinary skill in the art that such a system could operateequally well in a system having fewer or a greater number of componentsthan are illustrated in FIG. 12. Thus, the depiction of the system 1200in FIG. 12 should be taken as being illustrative in nature and notlimiting to the scope of the disclosure.

The various embodiments further can be implemented in a wide variety ofoperating environments, which in some cases can include one or more usercomputers, computing devices or processing devices which can be used tooperate any of a number of applications. User or client devices caninclude any of a number of general purpose personal computers, such asdesktop, laptop or tablet computers running a standard operating system,as well as cellular, wireless and handheld devices running mobilesoftware and capable of supporting a number of networking and messagingprotocols. Such a system also can include a number of workstationsrunning any of a variety of commercially-available operating systems andother known applications for purposes such as development and databasemanagement. These devices also can include other electronic devices,such as dummy terminals, thin-clients, gaming systems and other devicescapable of communicating via a network. These devices also can includevirtual devices such as virtual machines, hypervisors and other virtualdevices capable of communicating via a network.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure utilize at least onenetwork that would be familiar to those skilled in the art forsupporting communications using any of a variety ofcommercially-available protocols, such as Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”), User Datagram Protocol (“UDP”),protocols operating in various layers of the Open System Interconnection(“OSI”) model, File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”), Universal Plug and Play(“UpnP”), Network File System (“NFS”), Common Internet File System(“CIFS”), and AppleTalk. The network can be, for example, a local areanetwork, a wide-area network, a virtual private network, the Internet,an intranet, an extranet, a public switched telephone network, aninfrared network, a wireless network, a satellite network and anycombination thereof.

In embodiments utilizing a web server, the web server can run any of avariety of server or mid-tier applications, including Hypertext TransferProtocol (“HTTP”) servers, FTP servers, Common Gateway Interface (“CGP”)servers, data servers, Java servers, Apache servers, and businessapplication servers. The server(s) also may be capable of executingprograms or scripts in response to requests from user devices, such asby executing one or more web applications that may be implemented as oneor more scripts or programs written in any programming language, such asJava®, C, C#, or C++, or any scripting language, such as Ruby, PHP,Perl, Python or TCL, as well as combinations thereof. The server(s) mayalso include database servers, including without limitation thosecommercially available from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase® and IBM® aswell as open-source servers such as MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, MongoDB,and any other server capable of storing, retrieving and accessingstructured or unstructured data. Database servers may includetable-based servers, document-based servers, unstructured servers,relational servers, non-relational servers or combinations of theseand/or other database servers.

The environment can include a variety of data stores and other memoryand storage media as discussed above. These can reside in a variety oflocations, such as on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) oneor more of the computers or remote from any or all of the computersacross the network. In a particular set of embodiments, the informationmay reside in a storage-area network (“SAN”) familiar to those skilledin the art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functionsattributed to the computers, servers or other network devices may bestored locally and/or remotely, as appropriate. Where a system includescomputerized devices, each such device can include hardware elementsthat may be electrically coupled via a bus, the elements including, forexample, at least one central processing unit (“CPU” or “processor”), atleast one input device (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, controller, touchscreen or keypad) and at least one output device (e.g., a displaydevice, printer or speaker). Such a system may also include one or morestorage devices, such as disk drives, optical storage devices andsolid-state storage devices such as random access memory (“RAM”) orread-only memory (“ROM”), as well as removable media devices, memorycards, flash cards, etc.

Such devices also can include a computer-readable storage media reader,a communications device (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless orwired), an infrared communication device, etc.) and working memory asdescribed above. The computer-readable storage media reader can beconnected with, or configured to receive, a computer-readable storagemedium, representing remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storagedevices as well as storage media for temporarily and/or more permanentlycontaining, storing, transmitting and retrieving computer-readableinformation. The system and various devices also typically will includea number of software applications, modules, services, or other elementslocated within at least one working memory device, including anoperating system and application programs, such as a client applicationor web browser. It should be appreciated that alternate embodiments mayhave numerous variations from that described above. For example,customized hardware might also be used and/or particular elements mightbe implemented in hardware, software (including portable software, suchas applets) or both. Further, connection to other computing devices suchas network input/output devices may be employed.

Storage media and computer readable media for containing code, orportions of code, can include any appropriate media known or used in theart, including storage media and communication media, such as, but notlimited to, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information such as computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data, including RAM, ROM, Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (“EEPROM”), flash memory or other memorytechnology, Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (“CD-ROM”), digital versatiledisk (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape,magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices or any othermedium which can be used to store the desired information and which canbe accessed by the system device. Based on the disclosure and teachingsprovided herein, a person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciateother ways and/or methods to implement the various embodiments.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that various modifications and changes may be made thereuntowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the claims.

Other variations are within the spirit of the present disclosure. Thus,while the disclosed techniques are susceptible to various modificationsand alternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereofare shown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. Itshould be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit theinvention to the specific form or forms disclosed, but on the contrary,the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructionsand equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention, asdefined in the appended claims.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in thecontext of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in thecontext of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both thesingular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearlycontradicted by context. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,”and “containing” are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning“including, but not limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. The term“connected,” when unmodified and referring to physical connections, isto be construed as partly or wholly contained within, attached to orjoined together, even if there is something intervening. Recitation ofranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as a shorthandmethod of referring individually to each separate value falling withinthe range, unless otherwise indicated herein and each separate value isincorporated into the specification as if it were individually recitedherein. The use of the term “set” (e.g., “a set of items”) or “subset”unless otherwise noted or contradicted by context, is to be construed asa nonempty collection comprising one or more members. Further, unlessotherwise noted or contradicted by context, the term “subset” of acorresponding set does not necessarily denote a proper subset of thecorresponding set, but the subset and the corresponding set may beequal.

Conjunctive language, such as phrases of the form “at least one of A, B,and C,” or “at least one of A, B and C,” unless specifically statedotherwise or otherwise clearly contradicted by context, is otherwiseunderstood with the context as used in general to present that an item,term, etc., may be either A or B or C, or any nonempty subset of the setof A and B and C. For instance, in the illustrative example of a sethaving three members, the conjunctive phrases “at least one of A, B, andC” and “at least one of A, B and C” refer to any of the following sets:{A}, {B}, {C}, {A, B}, {A, C}, {B, C}, {A, B, C}. Thus, such conjunctivelanguage is not generally intended to imply that certain embodimentsrequire at least one of A, at least one of B and at least one of C eachto be present.

Operations of processes described herein can be performed in anysuitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearlycontradicted by context. Processes described herein (or variationsand/or combinations thereof) may be performed under the control of oneor more computer systems configured with executable instructions and maybe implemented as code (e.g., executable instructions, one or morecomputer programs or one or more applications) executing collectively onone or more processors, by hardware or combinations thereof. The codemay be stored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in theform of a computer program comprising a plurality of instructionsexecutable by one or more processors. The computer-readable storagemedium may be non-transitory.

The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”)provided herein, is intended merely to better illuminate embodiments ofthe invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of theinvention unless otherwise claimed. No language in the specificationshould be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essentialto the practice of the invention.

Embodiments of this disclosure are described herein, including the bestmode known to the inventors for carrying out the invention. Variationsof those embodiments may become apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art upon reading the foregoing description. The inventors expectskilled artisans to employ such variations as appropriate and theinventors intend for embodiments of the present disclosure to bepracticed otherwise than as specifically described herein. Accordingly,the scope of the present disclosure includes all modifications andequivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended heretoas permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of theabove-described elements in all possible variations thereof isencompassed by the scope of the present disclosure unless otherwiseindicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.

All references, including publications, patent applications and patents,cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the same extent asif each reference were individually and specifically indicated to beincorporated by reference and were set forth in its entirety herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: underthe control of one or more computer systems configured with executableinstructions, receiving, from a computing device associated with acustomer of a virtual computer system service, a first request toprovision a dedicated hardware server, the dedicated hardware server tobe provisioned for exclusive use by the customer; identifying, from apool of available hardware servers, a hardware server suitable fordedication to the customer, the hardware server being suitable fordedication as a result of the server at least not being allocated toanother customer of the virtual computer system service; modifying, in aserver database comprising one or more entries for a plurality ofhardware servers specifying availability of the plurality of hardwareservers for dedication, an entry for the identified server to dedicatethe identified hardware server to the customer; providing, to thecomputing device associated with the customer, an identifier of thededicated hardware server; receiving, from the computing deviceassociated with the customer, a second request to launch a virtualmachine instance using the dedicated hardware server, the second requestincluding the identifier of the dedicated hardware server; and launchingthe virtual machine instance within the dedicated hardware server. 2.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the method furthercomprises: receiving, from the computing device, a third request tore-launch a second virtual machine instance, the second virtual machineinstance previously associated with the dedicated hardware server as aresult of the second virtual machine instance having been launchedwithin the dedicated hardware server; determining, based at least inpart on the entry for the dedicated hardware server in the serverdatabase, whether the dedicated hardware server has capacity availablefor supporting the second virtual machine instance; and as a result ofthe dedicated hardware server having capacity available for supportingthe second virtual machine instance, re-launching the second virtualmachine instance using the dedicated hardware server
 3. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the method furthercomprises: receiving, from the computing device, a third request torelease a second dedicated hardware server, the second dedicatedhardware server provisioned for the exclusive use of the customer;determining if one or more virtual machine instances are operatingwithin the second dedicated hardware server; as a result of no virtualmachine instances operating within the second dedicated hardware server,modifying, in the server database, an entry for the second dedicatedhardware server to indicate that the second dedicated hardware serverhas been released; and releasing the second dedicated hardware serversuch that the second dedicated hardware server can be provisioned forthe exclusive use of another customer.
 4. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises updating arecord within an accounting database to indicate when the identifier ofthe dedicated hardware device has been provided to the computing deviceassociated with the customer.
 5. A system, comprising: a plurality ofservers; a data store configured to store a plurality of dedications,wherein one or more dedications of the plurality of dedicationsassociating a customer with a server of the plurality of servers suchthat allocatable capacity of the server is reserved for exclusive use ofthe customer; and a management sub-system configured to select, inresponse to a request that identifies the server of the plurality ofservers for use in launching virtual machine instances, the server fromthe plurality of servers in a manner that respects the plurality ofdedications in the data store.
 6. The system of claim 5, furthercomprising an accounting database configured to update a record toindicate when the identifier of the server has been provided to thecustomer.
 7. The system of claim 5, wherein the management sub-system isfurther configured to: receive a request to launch a virtual machineinstance using the allocatable capacity of the server; determine, basedat least in part on a dedication of the plurality of dedications storedin the data store if the dedicated server has the allocatable capacityavailable for supporting the at virtual machine instance; and as aresult of the server having the allocatable capacity available forsupporting the virtual machine instance, launch the virtual machineinstance using the server.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the requestto launch the virtual machine instance includes an identifier of theserver, the identifier usable to distinguish the server from otherservers reserved for the exclusive use of the customer.
 9. The system ofclaim 5, wherein the management sub-system is further configured to, inresponse to a request to provision a server for the exclusive use of thecustomer, identify, from the plurality of servers, the server suitablefor dedication to the customer, the server being suitable for dedicationas a result of the server having the allocatable capacity available forsupporting the virtual machine instance and the server not havingcapacity allocated to another customer of the virtual computer systemservice.
 10. The system of claim 5, wherein the management sub-system isfurther configured to: receive a request to re-launch a virtual machineinstance, the virtual machine instance having been associated with theserver; determine, based at least in part on a dedication within thedata store associating the customer to the server, whether the serverhas the allocatable capacity available for supporting the virtualmachine instance; and as a result of the server having the availableallocatable capacity, re-launch the virtual machine instance using theserver.
 11. The system of claim 5, wherein the management sub-system isfurther configured to: receive a request to release the server;determine operation of any virtual machine instances within the server;as a result of no virtual machine instances operating within the server,update a dedication within the data store associating the customer tothe server to indicate that the server has been released; and enable theallocatable capacity of the server to be provisioned for the exclusiveuse of another customer.
 12. The system of claim 5, wherein themanagement sub-system is further configured to: receive, from thecustomer, a request to utilize the allocatable capacity of the server tolaunch a virtual machine instance; as a result of the allocatablecapacity not being available, select, from the plurality of servers, asecond server not having capacity allocated for another customer; updatean entry in the data store corresponding to the second server to specifythat allocatable capacity of the second server has been dedicated forthe exclusive use of the customer; and launch the virtual machineinstance using allocatable capacity of the second server.